On Stacey Abrams, Alisha Thomas Searcy, and Richard Woods

 

On Stacey Abrams, Alisha Thomas Searcy, and Richard Woods

Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 27/28, 2022

Stacey Abrams and I grew up in Mississippi and have had conversations about our native state. Alisha Thomas Searcy and I shared an office in the GA House of Representatives and talked often about House business. Richard Woods and I traversed the state of Georgia, separately, as contenders for State School Superintendent and ran into each other frequently. I have tales to tell about all three of them. They probably have a few to tell about me.

Stacey Abrams has a mind like a bear trap. She is an engaging speaker and a walking encyclopedia. She is also a prolific writer of soft porn novels, but more on that momentarily. Alisha Searcy is smart too. She has boundless energy and an inquisitive mind. She is also observably ambitious.

Richard Woods is a quiet man of character and great knowledge. A man of no bluster, but of substance and high purpose, Woods is a lifelong educator. He has taught school, supervised teachers, owned a small business, and has served as Georgia State School Superintendent since 2015. He is currently running for re-election.

 All three of these public figures are “defined by their ideology,” as the media likes to put it. My association with them began in 2001 when Searcy and I entered the Georgia House. Abrams became a member of the House in 2007. Woods and I became contenders and friends in 2010 but the contest for State School Superintendent was won by John Barge. In 2014 Woods challenged Barge and won the race.

After serving in the House for two terms, I became the House Messenger for Speaker Glenn Richardson. Most of my duties took place on the House floor, assisting the Speaker with the organized pandemonium. One early morning duty, however, took place in his office where I had to take calls from legislators who wished to speak during “Morning Orders,” that portion of time when legislators could speak on any topic or concern of their choosing before debate on bills began. House members were required to call me by 9:00 AM.

One morning Rep. Searcy called me at 9:20 to ask for a speaking slot. I reminded her that 9:00 AM was the cut-off time and that the morning schedule was set. She persisted and persisted. So let’s see … Alisha and I are suite mates; we’re fellow Cobb Countians; I respect her; there’s one slot left. The Speaker won’t like my breaking the rule but I’ll give her the slot.

10:00 AM. The Speaker gavels members to order. After the devotional and prayer, Morning Orders begin. Rep. Searcy is the last speaker. She delivers a tirade on race. When her time expires, the Speaker gavels her, but she continues to talk. The Speaker gavels over her repeatedly. Instead of ending her speech she continues to rail and then to sing “We Shall Overcome” as she heads for the House door. Members of the Black Caucus follow her on outside the House floor.

With anger I phoned her when the day’s session ended, telling her that she had betrayed my friendly gesture of breaking the rule by allowing her to speak. Her unapologetic reply was “Well, sometimes we just have to break the rules.”

Learning that Rep. Abrams had written several novels, I invited her to talk to my freshman English class at Chattahoochee Tech when the legislative session was over. She did so and for an entire hour held students and the teacher in the palm of her hand as she explained and illustrated the importance of clear communication. Thank goodness she didn’t read from any of her novels. A few weeks later I sought out her books but couldn’t find them. After learning that her pen name is Selena Montgomery, I finally found her novels. Yes, they contain verbal porn.

Superintendent Woods is being challenged currently by Ms Searcy. Everybody knows that Ms Abrams is challenging Governor Brian Kemp. Lately, media pundits have been sadly claiming that conservatives are “defined by their ideology.” Of course they are. So are progressives. One’s ideology is one’s beliefs. Abrams and Searcy are fellow ideological progressives. In fact they have the attention and support – big time – of progressives around the country. Abrams has been unsuccessful in playing down her defund the police stance. If elected, Searcy would turn public schools into “government schools” for sure. Woods is no progressive, for sure.

I’m just saying it’s wise to know what every candidate’s ideology is as well as what kind of books they write.

 

Roger Hines

August 24, 2022

The Present is No Time for Unity

The Present is No Time for Unity

Published in Marietta Daily Journal August 20/21, 2022

            I’ve had only two fights in my life and I won both, not because I was strong or knew how to fight, but because a sense of justice lit a fire in me and rendered me momentarily uncontrollable.  That’s not to say that I lost control of my emotions or my senses. It means that my three opponents could not control me. A burning desire to instantly right a wrong was all that enabled me and produced success.

            Fight one. We had all had enough of Jimmy Bailey. It was an outdoor P.E. class. It was the eighth grade which means I was thirteen or fourteen.

            Jimmy Bailey was a bully. I watched him push and shove others around. When he struck Otis Massey, I knew I would have to do something. Otis was extremely timid. His family was even poorer than mine. When “the Bailey boy” without cause or reason walked up to Otis and hit him in the ribs, something came over me. I rushed over and struck Jimmy Bailey in the face with the heel of my hand. He reeled, sat down, and began to cry. I’ve no doubt that shock served to correct him as much as my sure blow. Fights were fairly common so our teacher, the football coach, did nothing. As for Jimmy Bailey, he changed his ways.

            Fight two. In college I was known as Bill Ladd’s roommate. Bill Ladd was my best friend and was tall, dark, and handsome. Although he could have whipped a bear, he was a gentle giant known all over the campus for his looks, personality, and athletic ability. I was pleased to walk along in his shadow. Knowing his character, I was pleased and eager to defend him as well.

            It was an intra-mural basketball game in the college gym. Suffering from a bad back I was reduced to keeping stats on the bench for our dorm’s team. At a point in the game, I happened to look up from my clip board and saw that my heroic friend had just grabbed a rebound but for some reason had been attacked by two guys on the opposing team. Jimmy Bailey! Otis Massey! Consciously, again, and again infused by a lightning strike of justice I threw my clip board down, slung one of my dear friend’s attackers on the floor and gave the other my Jimmy Bailey special. Eventually, they both got up to apologize and all was well.

            How is it that contemporary politics recently returned my mind to Otis Massey and Bill Ladd?  I say it’s because we are sitting idly by and allowing chaos, violence, double standards, and sheer tyranny to prevail. Yes, I’m referring to the chaos of transgender politics that defies human biology, messes with the minds of children and allows men to control girl sports. I’m referring to the violence of our major Democrat-run cities that is seeping out into small town and rural America, to the overlooked violent “summer of love” and the obsession over goons who stormed the Capitol and who could have been thwarted but weren’t. I’m referring to the double standards applied to Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and other Democrat operatives versus those applied to former President Trump and God knows how many of his present and former associates. I’m referring to the tyranny of an administration and its party that has already legislated that IRS agents be increased by 87,000 to ferret out our pocketbooks, and to the outrageous border crisis that our not so nimble president cares nothing about. I refer to the dying yet still poisonous and poisoning media that hates Donald Trump so much that it will overlook the corruption of our president and his family. About half the voters in 2016 voted for Trump, yet his enemies continue to hope that one more attack against him will be their charm.

            It’s time for lovers of freedom not just to vote but to solicit others in any way they can to fight the present tyranny. When unity is impossible, victory is necessary.

            Decades ago at Meridian (MS) High School, long after Otis Massey and Bill Ladd, six excellent coaches just for fun held  Saturday classes for male faculty to teach them self-defense.  I learned from these great coaches how to defend myself. I appreciate the skills they taught us; however, I still don’t believe that physical readiness is as reliable as a sense of urgency brought on by the recognition of a need and a deep desire for freedom from tyranny. That need is now.

 

Roger Hines

August 18, 2022 

America’s Turmoil

 

America’s Turmoil   

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) July 9/10, 2022                  

            The British writer G.K. Chesterton wrote, “All revolutions are doctrinal. You cannot upset things unless you believe something outside them.”

 The same is true of every belief of every stripe, including atheism and secularism. Atheism and secularism are philosophies, and they are essentially the same.  In effect they are both religions. I’m happy to say that I have friends who are devout atheists or secularists. These friends are good people of accomplishment and they care about people and the country. They are not hostile to people of faith. With all respect they take exception to faith and anything transcendent, truly believing that what you see is all there is. I see and understand the distinctions they make between themselves, but I reject their insistence that they are not religious. A belief system is a belief system.

These friends like to point out to me that the U.S. Constitution does not contain the name God, and they are right. However the Declaration of Independence, while not law, is the document that set in motion the intention of 13 colonies to be free from a European power. The Declaration, with fire and high purpose, birthed the Constitution. In so doing, it did and does acknowledge the Creator and even claims that it is He, not monarchs or government, who endow human beings with “certain unalienable Rights” in the first place. This acknowledgement is found in the second sentence.

In the Declaration’s final sentence, which is a clear prayer of supplication, its writer appeals to “Divine Providence” for His support as the signers “mutually pledge to each other (their) lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.” Of the five textbooks from which I have taught this esteemed political document, three have omitted this final sentence.

Consider America’s present turmoil. Ponder the revolutionary spirit that fills the air, a spirit fraught with notions and policy ideas that have not sprung from either the Declaration, the Constitution, or the Judeo-Christian ethic that spawned both of these documents. Notions of governmental power, of human sexuality, and of freedom itself are being proposed that would shock not only our founders but also the general population of merely 40 years ago.

            Regarding governmental power, one of the nation’s two major parties has turned almost entirely to “democratic socialism.” It has stated publicly its desire to pack the Supreme Court, to curb the right of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, and to mark as “racists” or “nationalists,” those who believe a nation must have borders. The other major party – more precisely its leaders – often caves to the socialist party in the interest of unity and out of fear that revolution will break out if there is not “bipartisanship.” These peace-lovers are the ones who need Chesterton, Edmund Burke, and Patrick Henry the most. A 10^th grade world history student can understand that the “democratic socialist” party has wrapped its views of governance with the philosophy of Karl Marx. Its solution for every problem is the Nanny State.

            Regarding human sexuality, one of the two nation’s major parties has gone absolutely mad. With corporate America covering its every flank, it has re-defined for us sexuality itself. We all hem and haw about this but the issue can be boiled down to one word, homosexuality. Or as the Apostle Paul put it in the religious book most used by Americans, “men with men doing that which is unseemly.” Pride Month was all about celebrating homosexuality and, yes, Seattle’s parade with fully nude men in front of children was a good example of where we should have known the LGQBT “community” would lead us. Seattle, thou art America. Why is it not okay to criticize the LGQBT crowd? Why should they be shielded from criticism when not one other segment of the culture is? Living their chosen “lifestyle” is one thing. Flaunting it is another.

            As for freedom itself, wherever he lies buried Patrick Henry weeps. Every year our freedom is restrained more and more. The FBI has recently raided the homes of enemies of the Democratic Party in the dead of night. A Congressional committee, calling its meeting a “hearing,” continues to bring charges against a former president, disallowing cross examination of its fear-induced witnesses. How cowardly to slam a former president or anyone else and allow no rebuttal. How pitiful of the corporations to bend their weakened backbones in any direction the cultural revolutionaries wish.    

            One of my atheist friends agrees with me on our loss of freedom. Denying freedom’s God, he‘s with Chesterton on the doctrine (the beliefs) of revolutions. He knows that progressives don’t like America because they do like things that America has never stood for.

 

Roger Hines

7/2/22

Go Plant Some Turnips … or Something

 Go Plant Some Turnips … or Something

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) July 2/3, 2022

            It’s a bit late to plant turnips, but late summer or early fall will afford gardeners another opportunity.  Turnips, like their cousins the collards, prefer cool weather, so early spring or early fall planting can produce the best results. Full disclosure: I’ve defied the experts and the Master Gardeners several times regarding tomatoes and flowers and have achieved what I sought, but I don’t recommend that. Those Master Gardeners know what they’re talking about. They can make anything look beautiful or tasteful.    

            It’s not really turnips or tomatoes or tulips that are on my mind.  It’s the fact that Americans have become so far removed from the good earth that our minds and attitudes are getting messed up. We are so urbanized and so immersed in politics that we need release.  And it’s not just children and teens who need to get outdoors.  Adults do as well. Vitamin D is one good reason for the outdoors, but mental health is as important as physical health. I’ve no doubt that good doses of outside air, more views of the trees around us, and more chats with our next-door neighbors would affect even our politics for the better. Dirty hands can help too. And sweating never hurt anybody.

            It’s also not just our kids and grandkids who think that groceries come from grocery stores.        I’ve no doubt that adults as well saunter through the grocery store aisles giving no thought at all to the origins of all the wondrous things they are beholding.  I wonder if they consider what they’re beholding as wondrous.

            How wrong President John Adams was: “Our boundary will reach the Pacific in no more than 300 years and we will build a great democracy every step of the way.” Talk about British understatement. Adams was truly an American politically, but like so many others he was still drying off from British English. The early Americans were firmly established in California by 1846. The happy urge to get outside, explore, and build or plant something, just would not allow early Americans to stay inside.

            Most people reading this may as well forget about raising a hog, keeping a calf that you must vaccinate or neuter, gathering corn, or pulling up peanuts.  We live too close together for all of that.  But somehow  we’ve all got to do something that reminds us of who and what we are and were, where and what we came from, what the earth we live on is like, and what its many benefits are.  After all what we eat still comes from the earth.  That means dirt.

            Yet dirt is not respected.  There’s no money in dirt or manual labor any more, we’re told.  Besides, dirt is dirty.  So get thee to a college and get a degree.  Think corporate world.  Major in feminine studies, international law, or something else eclectic, whatever that means. Your future lies not in your functioning hands but in your functioning brain. Nope, wrong again. The average age of plumbers in America is 60. That means we better stop steering so many youths away from a future of physical labor. Besides, plumbers, cattlemen, electricians, farmers, mechanics and such have to have good minds to do their essential kinds of work and their rewards or pay are far more than a pittance.

            My family was cotton and corn. My wife’s was cotton and dairy cows. We shucked corn. My wife’s mother stepped carefully down into a well hidden, rocky-clad spring to place butter in a naturally refrigerated little cave. How did two country kids become teachers of poetry? I suspect it was because we had experienced the poetry – the rhythms and beauty – of the seasons and of the agrarian, rural life. Cows move slowly. Corn grows fast. Everything about cotton is wretched. A nearby garden of colorful vegetables can take the edge off of the cotton field.           

Americans are one nation under therapy and one reason is that a few decades back, we began to ignore and eventually ceased taking advantage of the healing, therapeutic qualities of the outdoors.  But let me back away a bit from the above claim that we live too close together to do certain outdoor things.  Most houses and apartment back yards have enough space for four or five tomato plants. For the sake of our individual and collective sanity as well as for the sake of the American spirit, please go plant something.  Then care for it, watch it grow, and see what it does to you long before you harvest and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

 

Roger Hines

6/29/22

On Going to the Woods and Learning

 On Going to the Woods and Learning

 Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) August 13/14, 2022

Recently for a solid week my wife Nancy and I fought -  no, let’s just say we dealt with – ants, bugs, spider webs, pesky though beautiful deer, armies of crickets, and the smell of horse manure. It was glorious.

            Why the word “fought” even came to my mind is a mystery to me. We knew what we were getting into when we signed up for the cabin in the woods with two barns on one side and a gigantic lake on the other. Such sights, sounds, and smells we grew up in and they all grew in us. They also grew us up. That’s why we chose the humble wooded cabin near Lake Hartwell a few miles east of Hartwell, Georgia.

            We were not in Hart County primarily to re-live our growing up or to enjoy the woods and the huge farm, though Nancy was able to do much of the latter. I was there for work.        The work that took me back to the countryside literally and nostalgically was a week of intensive teaching at Whitworth Women’s Prison near Hartwell. Oh, how we allow words and ideas to lodge in our heads, ruling out all other possible ways to accomplish a goal. Words like “semester,” when it comes to formal learning. Tradition says we must have at least a semester of this, that, or the other to truly learn anything. But not if the learners have time on their hands and are so totally dedicated to their studies that they are willing to face six-hour classes for five straight days. Such an arrangement would never work for a knowledge-based subject such as history, but for skills-based subjects like writing, it certainly does. 

 Tradition says sit down, take notes, do homework, and make a certain score on a test. Reality says education is Aristotle or Abe Lincoln on one end of a log and anybody else on the other end, if but for an hour. Tradition says, “Tell.” Reality pleads, “Don’t just tell me; show me.”

But how do you show someone how to write? We can watch plumbers plumb, watch doctors doctor, and watch engineers draw or build, but we never watch writers write. So what does the teacher of writing do? Mark Twain’s suggestion was to get the learner’s mind off of learning to write and “throw their minds to where they grew up, to what they enjoy, to what they find despicable, or to what they consider beautiful, then entice them to tell about it and to use the right word and not its second cousin.” Perhaps a fair summary of Mark Twain’s suggestion is to think about something that makes you mad, sad, or glad.

Fortunately, though because of misfortune, all of the women in the Composition class at Whitworth had plenty to say and write about madness (anger), sadness, and gladness as well. Brenda (not her real name) had made big money as a teenager selling drugs. Lacy, a Registered nurse, was the only one in the class who had not come from a large town or city. The city slickers in the class insisted daily that Lacy and I tell them more about the woods, cows, baling hay, tending fields, and gathering cotton and corn. I kept wishing that Nancy, who began milking cows as a child, could have been with me for them to hear a female describe the rural life.

In 1845 the New England essayist Henry David Thoreau, having graduated from Harvard, moved to the woods where he wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essentials of   life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach. I wanted to live sturdily, to drive life into a corner and reduce life to its lowest terms.”

From our cabin each day, across delightful Hartwell, on to the prison, Thoreau and my and Nancy’s background messed with my head. Why are so many of us afraid of silence? Do we need a screen at the gas pump? Are we willing victims of wonderful technology? Do we ever think of where groceries actually come from? Why in so many places has worship gone from at least some silence to obligatory noise? What are we sacrificing when we forsake the outdoors entirely?

We know the answers to these questions: impatience, capitulation to the surrounding culture, and the sheer fear of being still or alone. The woods are a perfect sanctuary.  Check them out next time the city or the suburbs get you down.

 

Roger Hines

August 11, 2022

Wishing Women Well

 

                                                           Wishing Women Well

                                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) August 6/7, 2022

                                        This column first appeared in 2018 and is being 

                                       republished as a welcome back to the school year.

            I’m thinking a great deal about women teachers these days, their school year still lying before them.  In fact, I’m going to sing their praises since I know from close experience how important and how unheralded they are.

            Why women teachers?  Frankly, because their influence on me and the debt I owe them is beyond measure.  I’m not referring to the teachers who taught me, though I also owe them a great debt of gratitude, but to female colleagues past and present.  I’m grateful for the men with whom I’ve taught over the years.  Coaches, particularly, are my heroes.  But in the two states, six schools and three colleges I’ve taught in, the women teachers have outnumbered the men more than two to one.  Individually and as a group, these women bear several distinctives.

            Some readers will view the following observations as condescending.  Sorry.  I still open and close the car door for my wife and intend to do so until I’m bent double.  Others might think these observations are out of step with modern times.  I certainly hope so.  There are many things about our exciting present world which I hope I never adapt to such as declining manners, vulgar language, our nation’s passionate love affair with alcohol, and all of the outlandish talk about choosing our gender.  In many ways the present age is better; in many ways it isn’t.

            But regarding women, it’s a long way from the ‘70s cry, “I am woman; hear me roar” to the contemporary “Me Too” movement.  Gloria Steinem, in her first issue of “Ms Magazine” declared, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”  Turns out, quite a few women now need the help of men and other women alike to bolster their claims of past male misbehavior.

            I’ve been surrounded by women my entire life.  Here’s how: one mother, ten sisters, fifteen nieces, one wife, two daughters, two daughters-in-law, six granddaughters, and over 400 stellar women in the teaching profession.  Except for the ten sisters, such a scenario is not uncommon for most other men in teaching.

            For what they are worth, here are four conclusions I’ve drawn from working among females.

            One, they are as protective of men as men supposedly are of women.  OK, risky language for these overly sensitive times, but most female teachers, married or not, parents or not, possess a Mama Bear complex.  To me this is joyous.  The first year I taught school, every woman in the building encouraged and “looked after” me and two other male neophytes.  My second year, at age 23 at an all black school (I’m white), dear female teachers who knew my unstated and un-discussed mission for being there would say, “Mr. Hines, we gonna look out for you and you gonna be alright.”  Lord, I loved those women and still do.

            Women teachers tend to “look out” for their male students as well as for the coaches and all other male teachers.  Such an attitude makes for a productive and enviable workplace.

            Two, their sense of self and self-confidence is neither fragile nor undeveloped.  Women teachers are tough.  You will probably never hear a female teacher demand “safe space” or “sanctuary.”  You might hear a big 6-foot boy beg for safe space from his female teacher.  One of the pleasures of life is seeing a petite female teacher dress down a big, tall, smarty pants boy, reducing him to fear.

            Three, their families perch at the front of their minds.  Please get this.  Female teachers with families deal with children or teens all day, go home and serve their families, and then at 9:30 or 10:00 PM sit down to prepare or review for their next day of teaching.  Standing before people to teach requires ongoing thought and preparation.  Am I trying to evoke sympathy for female teachers?  Yes.  They manage two operations, a family and a full teaching load.  So, of course, do non-teaching working women, but right now I’m celebrating teachers.

            Four, like my wife Nancy, most women teachers could run the world.  Organization and execution are two of their greatest strengths.

            Oh, Nancy, I see you denying yourself, pouring your life into the lives of a husband and four children.  Betty Gray, Sue Gandy, Stella Ross, Jeanette McCloud, and Carla Northcutt, you my five female supervisors, I see you lending your inestimable intelligence and energy to Cobb County Schools, making a mark that still is apparent today.

            God, please bless all of our women teachers and please give them a good school year.

 

Roger Hines

9/26/18

Calling on a Poet and a Minister to Afflict the Comforted

 

                               Calling on a Poet and a Minister to Afflict the Comforted

                                  Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 30/31, 2022

            “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide / In the strife of Truth with Falsehood for the good or evil side.”

            I’m glad that the poem “The Present Crisis,” by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was in my high school American Literature textbook. For the most part Lowell has been canceled. Like Longfellow and other nineteenth century New England poets, Lowell was just too homespun and too concerned with what he and his contemporaries referred to as eternal truths. Soul-sick modernity has just about killed off the “Fireside Poets.”

            It matters not that in spite of being Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, an eloquent abolitionist, and being born into wealth and position, Lowell still possessed the common touch. Nor does it matter that all of the “Fireside Poets” (others were John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes) burrowed deep into the depths of human values, family, and “ideas that make nations great,” as one literary critic put it. Contemplation, love of country, and celebration of western civilization aren’t the main things on the minds of us moderns.  But what is the job of the poet or of the minister if it’s not to afflict the comforted? Consider the following quote from a minister.

“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s anti-religious laws.”

Martin Luther King, like Lowell, was enumerating what he deeply believed was truth. They both viewed truth as being on the scaffold. In Lowell’s case, his poem was a response to the proposed annexation of Texas into the Union. Knowing that Texas would be one more slave state, Lowell argued against annexation, claiming “It is a truth that all men were meant to be free.” King, like the Declaration of Independence, asserted that freedom itself is rooted in objective truth.

But what do we make of these two thinkers and activists, given today’s entrenched relativism? Is truth objective or is it a matter of “my truth” and “your truth”? To many moderns, referring or appealing to truth is an act of intolerance. In higher education, in the media, and alas often in the law, relativism prevails. Paradoxically, relativism denies the existence of truth but insists on its own truth. Evidence of this can be found in President Biden’s efforts to deal with “disinformation.” It is illustrated by the growing practice of college students who either walk out or shout down guest speakers – always conservatives – with whom they disagree.

Other examples are the professional athlete, the corporation employee, and the college professor who refuse to allow their freedom of speech to be abridged and are fired, typically because they disagreed with their superiors and were brave enough to say so. Add the corporate pressure or city/county government pressure to participate in Pride Month. These developments are nothing less than soft totalitarianism.

Speaking of paradox, Lowell, King, and many other true lovers of freedom have experienced their own present crises that called for fighting for justice. But consider: if there is no truth, there’s no injustice. Semantically and ideologically those who claim there is no absolute truth have wrapped themselves in illogic.

In his book, “Live Not by Lies,” Rod Dreyer argues that America’s growing relativism and disdain for absolute truth is now a steady creep. Relativism will not one day dramatically triumph, thus ending the cultural/ideological wars. Rather, the culture war’s end will result in “comfortable servitude run by a technocratic progressive elite and supported by Big Data and a compliant capitalism.” Sad, if Dreyer is right.

Fearing Truth’s loss in the battle, Lowell wrote, “Though the cause of evil prosper / Yet ‘tis Truth alone is strong / Truth forever on the scaffold / Wrong forever on the Throne / Yet that scaffold sways the future / And behind the dim unknown / Standeth God within the shadow /Keeping watch above His own.”

Lowell’s sparkling poetry gained him international fame. “Our Present Crisis” was the springboard of the hymn, “Once to Every Man and Nation.” A voice for faith, freedom, justice and family values, his poetic success was overshadowed by personal tragedy. Three of his four children died in infancy. His beloved wife, Maria, died in 1853. Lowell sought to drown his sorrow by serving as America’s ambassador to Spain and later, Great Britain.

We all know about the fate of Martin Luther King.

 

Roger Hines

July 28, 2022

They’re after our children and always have been

 

                                         They’re after our children and always have been 

                                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) July 23/24, 2022

            Let’s say you have a 5 or 6-year-old child or grandchild in a public school. This child is  full of questions, and is of course quite impressionable. As a loving parent or grandparent, you always try to answer the serious and sometimes comical questions the 5 or 6-year-old throws at you (“Why don’t snakes have legs”? “Where does space end”?)

            Given a child’s wondrous desire to learn, it’s wise for parents to know exactly what schools are teaching. Are they teaching things that are contrary to what parents are teaching? Does the curriculum include subjects that are being taught too early or that should not even be addressed? Are schools teaching things parents believe are factually, or morally wrong? Does the curriculum now include outright indoctrination?

            Parents, meet modern education. Kids, meet some ideas and so-called facts which your parents cannot embrace and of which you should keep them fully informed.

            We should have known that sex education, when introduced decades ago, would lead to the present sexual chaos. Facts about human biology and reproduction are one thing. “Transgender studies” are another. Sex and marriage and family living are one thing. A man with a husband and a woman with a wife are another. Kindness to all people is one thing. Being labeled a homophobe for believing homosexuality is rebellion against nature is another.

            So here we are, not just in America, but in the entire western world falling all over ourselves trying to unravel gender. Let me amend that statement. Countless professors, college students, Hollywoodites, media stars, and extreme left liberals – pardon the repetition – are trying to unravel gender. Ordinary folks have always assumed gender was settled. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. Why the fuss? Have leftists never studied genitalia? Were we all not born of a woman? Oh, the nonsense!

            Homosexuality is almost as old as mankind, but the contesting of whether one is a male or female is fairly new, hardly 50 years old in America. Today we are considered bigots by America’s social/political left if we do not accept the notion that one can “identify” as the gender he or she – oops – make that the gender “one” wishes to be. Gender has become optional, therefore changeable.

            Consider the effect that this view of sexuality has on our children, whether they are 5 or 15. No wonder there is so much gender confusion among children and youth. Faith cometh by hearing and so has this confusion. While we should be kind toward anyone who is seriously and sincerely struggling with such confusion, we can be pretty sure that the culture is largely to blame. How often do we hear masculinity being described as “toxic” or femininity as “perceived weakness”? America and Europe both have reduced masculinity and femininity to societal constructs. Pope Benedict XVI who succeeded the beloved Pope John Paul II wrote, “the impulse to liberate ourselves from all authorities, traditions, nature, and God has made us into our own creators. Such an impulse dissolves our understanding of what it is to be human and denigrates our physical bodies. It weakens relationships, especially within the family.”

            From this Baptist to a Catholic Pope, a hearty “Amen!” 

            John Grabowski, gender issues researcher at Catholic University of America, argues that denial of sexual differences, as well as the efforts to change one’s gender, have had ill effects. For post-operative transgender people, Grabowski states, the rate of psychiatric hospitalization is three times higher than for control groups. Suicide attempts are five times higher.

            Even so, “gender ideology” fills the air. Transgendered males are playing on female sports teams, a gross unfairness. The University of Pennsylvania has nominated its now famous trans swimmer Lia Thomas for the NCAA Woman of the Year award. Since sports are now as woke as the military, her win is likely.

            Amidst all the sexual rebellion stand our impressionable children. Sexual rebels are telling children they are the result of mindless chemical and biological processes, processes that can be altered if one doesn’t “identify” with them. Sexual ideologues, many of them educators, are after our children. Following their philosophical father John Dewey, the father of modern public education, (see Dewey’s “Pedagogic Creed,” 1897) they wish to replace parents with “educational conditioners,” or what today are called “groomers.”

            It’s time for parents to make some more noise and time for their nemesis, Attorney General Garland, to be impeached. This could very well happen if Republicans take control of Congress. (See Article II, Section 4 of the nation’s rule book.)

 

Roger Hines

July 21, 2022

Why, why, why?

 

                                                               Why, why, why?

                           Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) June 16/17, 2022

            Former NFL player Dion Sanders says that as head coach at predominantly Black Jackson (MS) State University, he coaches athletes 75% of whom have no father in their homes or their lives.  Former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says America’s legal system is on life support. Goons who attacked the U.S. Capitol without one whit of organization or clear purpose are being called insurrectionists, an intentionally dumbed down use of a serious, history-laden word. Why?

            The Proud Boys are given center stage and taken to task by the liberal media while Black Lives Matter and Antifa are heralded and unpunished for their destructive 2020 “summer of love.” Parents who address their local school boards are tainted by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland who also refuses to enforce the law that forbids protesting in front of the homes of U.S. Supreme Court members. Why?

            My Pillow – meaning Mike Lindell and his free speech – has been canceled by Walmart and boo-coodles of other stores. Professional sports have been politicized beyond measure. Liberals are totally unhinged because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, seeking any loophole they can find to subvert the law of the land while lambasting Trump supporters for not accepting the results of an election. Such glaring hypocrisy. The January 6 Committee pretends to be seeking the truth about President Trump’s role in the January 6 caper but allows no cross-examination of witnesses. Why?

            Liberals are enjoying success in sexualizing early childhood education. Drag queens in elementary schools have become common place entertainment for major city school systems. Disney, who has always made their mermaids and other females sexy and blink-those-eyes suggestive, is now in full sexualization bloom. The World Health Organization recently declared that “sex is not limited to male and female.” Why?

            Father in Heaven, not the military, too.  Oh yes, google Joint Chief of Staff General Milley, or U.S. Military, or any one of the military branches, particularly the Navy, and read about the military’s efforts to acknowledge “our evolving understanding of gender in the contemporary world,” as a Church of England bishop put it. Compare the indoctrination you find to what you thought our military is actually for. Weep as you let your thoughts run to Eisenhower, MacArthur, Bradley, Patton, or to two of my personal, local heroes who have been heralded in this column, Generals Akin and Nutter. But don’t weep too long. There’s a war to be fought, a war of ideas but a war still. Whoever wins gets our children and grandchildren. Why?

            And oh yeah, Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Why?

            “Cultural evolution” is a misleading term. Every effect has a cause, socially as well as biologically. Suffice it to say that Deion Sanders clearly pin-pointed the cause of violence in America. The solution to guns and shootings is fathers, not the disarming of the citizenry. Given Chicago and Japan’s strict gun laws and shootings as well, why do some think disarming citizens will make us safer? Alan Dershowitz’s claim has been supported by the obviously nervous lawyers who appear before the January 6 Committee. We’re in bad shape when a Congressional Committee can induce nervousness in lawyers. Democrats have gone from Russia, Russia, Russia to Impeachement, Impeachment to “We gotta keep this ‘former guy’ from running for President in 2024.” Why?

            If parents are to be chastised for speaking their piece to local boards of education, we can be sure that war is being made on our kids. The president of the National Education Association recently screamed, “We are gay and we will stay!” after Roe was overturned. Politics over learning. Why?

            As for the Prime Minister, he serves as a warning to scaredy-cat Republicans who back away from what and whom they once said they supported. Johnson didn’t get by with it and neither will Republicans. Restless British Tories finished Johnson off. Ordinary Republicans are restless too. Why?

             Why, oh why are ordinary folks facing such a culture? Because schools and colleges have always tended liberal to radical and we ourselves have let it happen. Commendably, we’ve been working hard at our jobs, but foolishly we’ve not been paying enough attention to politics, activism, and voting. This is changing, however. If November proves otherwise, our grandchildren will live in a moral/philosophical wasteland where objective truth is laughed at and where “my truth” and “your truth” are the guiding principles. If we can call them that.

 

Roger Hines

July 14, 2022

A Quiz for Progressive Swamp Dwellers

 

                                          A Quiz for Progressive Swamp Dwellers

                              Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) June 25/26, 2022

            Below is a quiz which I propose for all swamp dwellers in our nation’s capital, particularly Congress, the liberal media, and all leftist organizations that spend their days preaching to the rest of us. The purpose of the quiz is to find out just how much swamp dwellers actually know about Middle America, socio-political issues, economics, human sexuality, and the Judeo-Christian ethic which of course is the ethic that has most shaped and informed the American experience.

            But let’s be fair. Not all swamp dwellers are swamp creatures.  Many who work for the swamp do not subscribe to its current values or policies. I worked for the government for half a century as a teacher, though not in the swamp. How anyone could argue that public schools are not government schools is beyond me. Local boards of education, duly chosen by the citizenry and closer to their constituencies than the nation’s swamp leaders, are still government entities. I’m just grateful for Cobb County school board’s majority members and the state school superintendent, all of whom I know and deeply respect. If they worked in D.C., they would be good examples of those who are in the swamp but not of the swamp.

            Since we are now so beset with national leaders who have lost their minds in practically every area of our national life and who have proposed and defended economic and social ideas that are beyond the pale (new pronouns, abortion up to and after birth, sex ed for small children, paying off college debt), here is a simple test of their true knowledge and understanding of ordinary Americans.

            Middle America questions: 1.What is fly-fishing? 2. Name two breeds of cows. 3. Who is Bill Gaither? 4. Who is George Jones? 5. Is the peanut a bean? 6. Name a car that has a rotary engine. 7. Name one conservative newspaper in the northeast. 8. What is hominy? 9. Name a tree other than oak, pine, and cypress. 10. What is a monkey wrench?

            Socio-political questions: 1. What is the definition of the word “abort”? 2. Do most liberals believe in the perfectibility of man? 3. Do most conservatives? 4. Give three things (facts) that you know about Hobby Lobby. 5. What does the 10^th Amendment to the Constitution say? 6. Name one area of national life that the federal government is deeply involved in even though the 10^th Amendment clearly prohibits it. 7. How many illegal aliens have crossed the border since Biden took office? 8. Name five non-Central America nations from which aliens have come to join this invasion. 9. Define federalism. 10. Write a one-paragraph defense of the prevailing, systemic Liberal Privilege. 11. Explain in one sentence why you wish to take guns from law-abiding citizens instead of allowing citizens to defend themselves from evil or troubled guys who always manage to get guns. 12. What do you think a gun store owner would say if you told him you wanted to buy an “assault weapon”? 13. How old is the manufactured term, “assault weapon”?

Economic questions: 1. Define free enterprise. 2. Define socialism. 3. Give support for your social-political belief that it is okay to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Human sexuality questions: 1. How many genders are there, which are you, and what are some differences between you and the other gender(s)?  2. Can a man become a woman? 3. Defend the argument that homosexuality is not rebellion against the natural order. 4. Present your argument for the Navy’s video that instructs the Navy on how to use “inclusive pronouns” in order to avoid “he” and “she.” 5. Write a short defense of WellStar Health System’s support and touting of Pride Month.

Judeo-Christian ethic questions: 1.What is the origin of the expression, “Judeo-Christian”?  2. Recite any five of the Ten Commandments. 3. Give the source of “Let him that stole steal no more; let him work.” 4. How many American presidents have at least paid lip service to the Bible and the reality of God?

Bonus questions: 1. Name ten prominent Black Americans who do not subscribe to “systemic White racism.” 2. Declare whether or not you are a racist and defend your self-designation. 3. If you are White, state how many Black friends you have.

Final comment: If your grade is below 70, I will request that the American Conservative Union provide you with videos and other instruments that can liberate you from your disinformation and biases.

 

Roger Hines

June 23, 2022    

The SBC Under Siege But Still a Force for Good

 

                         The SBC Under Siege But Still a Force for Good

                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) June 18/19, 2022

            Southern Baptists are by no means completely southern anymore. In fact the largest Southern Baptist church is located in the state of California. Think about that. Over the years there have been efforts to change the name of the Southern Baptist Convention but none have been successful. This massive, voluntary fellowship of churches has held high the banner of an inerrant Bible and evangelism. Many feel that the name SBC has come to be recognized for its theology more than for its place of origin.

            Recently the SBC has been dealing with charges of sexual abuse against some of its pastors and other members. In response to the charges, the SBC’s Executive Committee engaged an investigative agency, Guidepost Solutions, to study the issue. The agency reported that for the past two decades key leaders (pastors, Executive Committee members, etc.) had covered up the extent of the abuses. In a 205-page document, the SBC Executive Committee released the names of over 700 convicted or “credibly accused clergy sexual abusers.” Thirty-eight pastors on the list were from Georgia.

            For some perspective, there are 3,400 SBC churches in Georgia. Many of those churches have multiple pastors, youth ministers, children’s ministers, etc. Thirty-eight offenders are thirty-eight too many but the numerical findings, if true, do not suggest that Southern Baptists are beset with the abuse problem which the Baptist News Global network (not affiliated with the SBC) or The Tennessean newspaper (published in Nashville where the SBC is headquartered) either outright or subtly claims.

            A central question in the issue is that of who should and can be held accountable. Is the full SBC responsible for local church abuses or abuse cover-ups? Whom can and should accusers sue? The answers to these questions are not murky, but they do require an understanding of Southern Baptist polity.

            A “fellowship of congregations” is probably the best and most precise characterization for the 14 million people and the 47,000 plus churches that comprise the SBC. With no pope, bishop, conference superintendents or such, the SBC is a conglomeration of Baptist churches that subscribe to its “Baptist Faith and Message” and contribute to its Cooperative Program, the mechanism that supports missionaries, colleges, a press and publishing arm, and six theological seminaries. Each Southern Baptist church is totally autonomous and independent of all other churches. There is no hierarchy of any measure.

            These facts regarding polity, of which most non-Southern Baptists are understandably uninformed, have led many to misrepresent the SBC and to speak of it in ways that are distinctly unfair. Since each church is totally autonomous, that church and not any other, is totally responsible for its own actions. There is no board or any other entity that lays down the law, punishes, or directs the local churches, each of which hires its own pastor and is self-governing. What then unites them?

            What unites them is their strongly held belief in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God which has led to their equally strong emphasis on personal evangelism, missions, and church planting. Southern Baptists are now in all 50 states.

            The largest protestant group in America, Southern Baptists do have an annual meeting (“convention’) every summer, usually at a major city. At this convention is where “messengers” (not technically delegates) vote on issues regarding their churches and the culture at large. This vote has no hold on local churches but is considered a reliable read of where Southern Baptists stand on the issues voted on.

            This past week in Anaheim, California the newly elected president of the SBC, Bart Barber from Texas, declared that “the tables have turned on sexual predators.” He was responding to the convention’s overwhelming vote to implement safeguards to protect members from sexual abuse. Since action on the sexual abuse safeguards was the centerpiece of the annual meeting and since the vote was so overwhelming, SBC congregations are no doubt eager to resume their main mission which is to spread the Gospel and their accompanying task of being one of the largest disaster relief organizations in the country. We can be sure that the SBC will also continue to speak to a culture gone crazy with sexual chaos, crime, and suppression of religious freedom.

            Georgia Baptists and the SBC have been blessed with many leaders like Marietta’s well known former pastor Nelson Price and Kennesaw First Baptist pastor Perry Fowler. These community-minded men, along with thousands like them, are not about to let a difficult, though important, issue stay them from their appointed task which is to serve God and point others to Him.

 

Roger Hines

6/16/22