Haven’t Gotten the Memo? It’s Coming

Haven’t Gotten the Memo? It’s Coming

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) May 27, 2023

It’s sad when an individual knows little or nothing about his or her parents and family background. If one doesn’t know from where or from whom he or she came, then one doesn’t really know who he or she is.

            At the personal level, ignorance of one’s origins is sorrowful, but at the national level it is downright dangerous. An individual with uncertain parentage can survive by making friends and creating a family of friends, but a nation must have far more connections such as a considerable measure of common culture: common values, traditions, and a body of known facts about its founding. If not, tribalism reigns.

            The diversity/global gospel is driving America to tribalism. Thus, the constant verbal warfare on television “news” and our ubiquitous division. Genuine diversity is one thing, but using the term diversity as a Trojan horse is another.  Indoctrination of every ideology under the sun will eventually mean death to America. Diverse means unlike. The question is how much unlikeness can we take without committing cultural suicide?

            That question has nothing to do with race or one’s national origin. From the start America has always been a nation of nations. The question has to do with ideology. As Wall Street Journal columnist Gerard Baker recently put it, “We in the West are in the grip of an ideology that disowns our genius, denounces our success, disdains merit, elevates victimhood, embraces self-loathing, and enforces it all in a web of authoritarian rules.” We in the West are also yielding to the cry that science is subjective, gender is a spectrum, and that universities must aggressively pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion. Forget intellectual growth.

            Ponder Baker’s statement above. Count the times you have seen members of Congress on television claiming victimhood, denouncing capitalism, putting America down, or clamoring for reparations for a sin none of us have ever committed.

            Our problem is our prevailing forgetfulness and the silence of those who actually haven’t forgotten. Forgotten is 1776 and knowledge of what the American Revolution was all about. We’ve forgotten that Western Civilization, birthed by the ancient Greeks, cradled more than is realized by the Romans and perpetuated by the British, is the foundation upon which America rests. Alas, we’ve forgotten that there’s no civilization without civility.

              Recall Jesse Jackson’s famous appearance at Stanford University in 1992. Leading a crowd of protestors at Stanford, he chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” Jackson and his clamorers were protesting Stanford’s “Western Culture and Humanities” emphasis, the university’s effort to beef up its Western Civilization curriculum. Actually Jackson was ahead of his time. Using the term long before it was cool, Jackson argued to Stanford administrators that Western Culture was not “diverse” enough. Of course Stanford did what universities and corporations do best. They caved. Forsaking their broad constituency and caving to the few who screamed the loudest, literally, Stanford’s administration changed their “Western Culture” program to “Our Many Cultures.”  That 1992 moment of cowardice was the beginning of what we have today: denial of a cultural identity and surrender to loud progressive voices who  wish to give the nation a make-over with their soft tyranny, one that would bring tears to Jefferson, Madison, and every other framer. Soft tyranny never stays soft for very long. Reread Constitutional Amendments I, II, IV, VI, and X and see if you think they have been infringed or ignored.

            Yes, the memos are being sent out, not just from universities to students, telling them how they must view this, that, and the other, but from corporations as well. But from Fox Corporation? Yep! And CVS, Kohls, Target, and you name it. Don’t forget banks. Even Goldman Sachs, that lion of global investment banking, has joined the growing line of cultural revolutionaries. Goldman’s memo to its employees calls for “rainbow pronouns” such as “ze,” “zir,” and “zemself.” God help us when such foolishness reigns.

            In recent decades Western tradition, particularly its Judeo-Christian underpinnings, has been targeted by memos. Its philosophical cornerstone is under assault. Sexuality, science in general, jurisprudence, higher education, and now the youngest of elementary school children are all affected by the handed down memos: “This is how we will from now on address each other.” “Here are words you must not use.”  “Show respect for LGBQT.” Etc.

            The memo wheel is well greased. If you work for a corporation, an educational institution, or the federal government, your memo is coming. I beg you to resist. And please tell your kids and grandkids who and what they are: they are – for right now – the envy of millions around the world who risk their lives to get to America.

Does Lady Justice Peep?

 

Does Lady Justice Peep?

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) May 20, 2023

            Events in the life of a friend I admire have prompted me to give thought to Lady Justice.

             Though less well known than Lady Liberty, Lady Justice is a centuries-old statue that vividly portrays and illustrates the Western values of fair and equal treatment before the law. As the saying goes, “The ground at the feet of Lady Justice is wondrously level.” That’s because Lady Justice is blindfolded and unbiased. She listens. She seeks only the truth.

            Lady Justice also never peeps. She stands solidly undisturbed by opinions, preferences, excuses, and lies. She listens to all of them but objectively hears all sides. Her solemnity does not suggest disinterest. It simply reminds us that she clings to values, truths, and principles that are not temporal but eternal. Truth cannot be changed but it can certainly be twisted or simply ignored. My good friend is definitely in need of Lady Justice.

             I have known David Moerschel for almost 20 years. I first met him when he invited me to join the board of a non-profit that he was starting. David is a highly specialized medical worker and a trained crisis chaplain. He is a committed Christian, a devoted husband, and the faithful father of three small children. David became worried about his family’s safety during the riots of 2020. Learning that the organization Oath Keepers had a good reputation for protecting families and businesses during riots, he joined its chat group three weeks prior to January 6, 2021. Recall that there were bands of black-clad people frightening neighborhoods all over the country in 2020.

Because of his medical background, Oath Keepers asked David to be in Washington, D.C. to assist medics. He agreed to go. At the Capitol David walked up the steps to look for the medic and found the doors closed. A dense crowd soon assembled on the steps as he was looking for the medics. Before long, the Capitol doors were opened, a cheer of “Push, push” went up and the crowd behind him stampeded, pushing its way into the Capitol. David had no choice but to go in the same direction as the crowd behind him lest he be stomped to the ground.

            David went up the Capitol steps to provide medical assistance, not to protest. He never did harm to people or damage to property. He did not enter the Capitol willingly. He was pushed by the stampede. He observed that the police were not escorting protestors out or telling them to leave, or even engaging them in any way.         

 David never shouted, never commiserated or communicated with rioters, was never accosted by any of them, all the while seeing police officers walk casually by. He was in no way involved with or a part of the goons who stampeded the Capitol. He was there to do his work as a crisis chaplain and to assist medics. David climbed the Capitol steps to be the active missionary, the helper, he always had been. His mission, however, was thwarted. Fortunately he was able to get out of the Capitol eleven minutes after entering.

              Five months after January 6, at the end of May, 2021 David, to his surprise, received a call from the FBI. The FBI later interviewed him in person for three and a half hours. He was arrested on July 2, 2021, charged with sedition and other “thought crimes,” and was convicted a long year and a half later in January of 2023. He will be sentenced on June 2, 2023. This kind of story is getting more and more familiar. His plight brings to mind the 1000 plus other Americans whose lives are still being ruined, many of whom never set foot in the Capitol. David has expressed his concern for those individuals and their families as well.

            David Moerschel is one of the most exemplary men I’ve ever known. He has a Master of Divinity degree and has done missionary work around the world. His children are home schooled by his wife. The family has had no income since he was placed under house arrest. Needless to say, their lives, particularly their financial status, have been drastically altered.

            Readers who wish to help David’s family can contact https://www.givesendgo.com/davidlegalfund. David and his wife are particularly asking for prayer. Because I know this man, his wife, his incredible in-laws, and his character, I’m giving and praying hard for him regarding his June 2 sentencing.

 

Mama, Lord I Miss You!

  Mama, Lord I Miss You!

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA), May 13, 2023

            The year was 1947. In three months I would be three years old. A black ambulance drove slowly up the long path from the graveled road to our house which sat in the middle of a vast cow pasture. As with tenant houses throughout Mississippi that so often sat in the middle of a cotton field, there was no yard as such and no fence or any type of border to separate the house from  the pasture. Cows could and did often graze right up to the front porch, prompting us to shoo them away lest they fill the surroundings with “cow patties.”

            The ambulance had no driveway to follow from the road to the house. My father had no vehicle and needed no driveway. The ambulance merely wove its way here and there as it traversed the foot path that the Hines kids kept beaten down with their daily treks to the school bus and mailbox. I had seen few motorized vehicles but enough to know that the ambulance wasn’t an ordinary one. This shiny, odd-shaped vehicle was bringing Mama home from the hospital with her seventeenth child, Carlton. He and I were the only ones not born at home.

            My sister Tressie, two years older than I, was in the front “yard” with me. Our much older sister Authula was overseeing our play. The slow arrival of the ambulance that interrupted our play scared me. I was accustomed to mule-drawn wagons, a few pick-ups, and aging T-Models but nothing so flashy as this funny looking … truck?.

             While Tressie and I stood in silent awe, Mama and her newborn were taken inside. We were shortly allowed to see them up close. Authula has reminded me many times over the years that I didn’t like the new baby and that I also showed a measure of disapproval toward Mama for showing up with him. I take Authula’s word for that since I don’t remember that detail. I do remember that during the years I was five, six, and seven Mama’s love for Carlton was beyond measure. A visitor would have thought this child was her first.

            But how could that be? How could the weariness, the toll taken on her body by sixteen other births not limit even the joy brought by yet another child? I say the answer lies in Mama’s strength of character. She was obviously blessed with physical strength but beneath her physical strength lay a foundation of faith, hope, and a love of life that even seventeen childbirths couldn’t diminish.

            My memories of Mama center on her personality as well as her character. She lived each day with joy and laughter while bearing up and doing without. I see her now at 6 o’clock in the afternoon wiping Daddy’s brow with a damp bath cloth because he once again worked in the field too long and appeared to be fainting.

            “Walter, I wish you wouldn’t stay in those fields so long,” she begs while rapidly passing the cloth across his face. Within minutes Daddy is revived and Mama heads to the kitchen. Truth is Mama didn’t like the kitchen. Her favorite place was the garden and the fields with Daddy.

            At age sixteen, now living in a different and slightly better place, I selfishly said something to Mama that I regret to this day. One morning after breakfast which always meant “meat” (we never said bacon for some reason), biscuits, syrup, and fried eggs, I said to her, “Why do we always have the same thing to eat?” Mama was standing inches away from me. As soon as the words left my lips, I watched as her face drooped. Without comment she walked away. Were I not already late getting to the road to catch the school bus I would have fallen all over myself getting to her to hug her neck and apologize.

            My mother was always saying “Lord,” as in “Lord, that’s a beautiful song!” or “Lord, that sun is hot today,” and sometimes, to express a bit of exasperation, just “Lord!” I don’t believe she was taking the Lord’s name in vain and if she had any inkling that she was doing so she would have ended the habit immediately.

            It wasn’t the birthing of seventeen children that brought Mama down at age 65.  She had labored on for seventeen years after her last child was born. Her death was hastened by kidney stones.

            We never celebrated holidays except July 4^th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. No birthdays, Mothers’s or Father’s Day. That’s why every Mother’s Day I have a great deal of celebrating to make up.           

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama!

 

Can Capitalism Be Improved?

 

Can Capitalism Be Improved?

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) May 6, 2023

            What do Jesus, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and Martin Luther King have in common? More than we might think according to co-authors Aaron Hedges and Paul Knowlton. Hedges and Knowlton’s book, “Better Capitalism: Jesus, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and MLK JR. on Moving from Plantation to Partnership Economics,” is a thorough and interesting examination of our capitalistic system. 

            Upon first seeing the title of this book, I wondered if it might be a subtle attack on the economic system that has produced more food and fulfilled more dreams than any other economic system known to man. My fears were abated as I found not an attack but a reasonable challenge to certain aspects of our economics. The book is not a collectivist manifesto.

            A quick review of the identity of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand might be in order. Adam Smith is the Scottish philosopher and economist who has been dubbed “the Father of Capitalism,” though Hedges and Knowlton persuasively assert that he is not the father of today’s capitalism. Ayn Rand is the successful Russia-born writer whose family’s life and livelihood were disrupted in 1917 by the Communist Revolution. After coming to America in 1923 Rand wrote prolifically, excoriating Marxism, extolling capitalism, and penning, among other works, her famous novel “Atlas Shrugged.” Unlike most anti-statists and conservatives, Rand was an atheist. Knowing of her atheism and her distaste for altruism, I was surprised that “BC” casts a favorable light on the stern and often hostile Rand. But wait until you read the chapter on Rand   titled “The Mother of Capitalism” before casting judgment on the book for placing her with the other figures in the book’s title. Rand, “BC” states, “explicitly rejected gaining for self at the expense of others.”

            The book is a very readable 278 pages, exquisitely organized. Previewing the chapter titles (“Our Corporate Work Isn’t Working,” “Our Corporate Work, Working?” and others)  tempts one to read ahead to see what each chapter holds. The book’s central thesis is that “plantation economics” needs to be replaced with “partnership economics.” The term, “plantation economics,” could be faulted for being too stern but it is clearly defined and supported (it addresses exploitation) and provides a contrast to and a fuller understanding of “partnership economics.”

            Contrasting plantation to partnership economics, the authors bemoan America’s last four decades shift from a “market economy” to a “market society,” asking “What isn’t for sale?” The authors quote philosopher Michael Sandel who wrote that “a market economy is a tool – a valuable and effective tool … A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor … a place where human relationships are made over in the image of the market. Do we want a market economy or a market society?”

             The quote from Sandel nudged my dislike for huge school name signs that post ads for the several companies that support the school in some way: CENTRAL HIGH … UNIVERSAL PLUMBING SAYS GO TIGERS; COCA COLA LOVES OUR TEACHERS (an example only). This lends support to “BC’s” cry, “Corporations are created by society – society should not be created by corporations.” Politics already pervades all of society. Must economics do the same, and at the school house?

            As for Adam Smith, “BC” heralds him as a man of ethics. Why? Because Smith wrote, “Concern for our own happiness recommends to us … concern for that of other people,” and because Smith measured all governments’ value “in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them.”

            “BC,” then, is a book about economic philosophy. Its arguments are undergirded by moral, ethical principles and questions. Economics will be better, the authors argue, when we read for ourselves what the sources/texts of our ethical values state, i.e., the “theological grounding of the Declaration of Independence,” Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and the Torah, all of which have much to say about economics.

            The authors could well have included in their title the name of John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Mutual Funds. In his famous book, “Enough,” Bogle also pleads for better, ethical  capitalism and for what some have called “a moral structure around money.” Bogel is granted four pages in “BC,” however, and praised as well. Praised he should be. Partnership economics didn’t keep him from having more than $5 trillion under Vanguard’s management.

             The authors invite readers to email their thoughts to info@partnershipeconomics.com.

            Lawyer Paul Knowlton and CEO Aaron Hedges are not professional economists, but their knowledge of economics, and experience in business are broad and deep. I have secured copies of their book for all four of my grown children.