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

 

             Divisions and Turn-arounds … Who’da Thoughta?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/16/22

            “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another …”

            So began the declaring, not the document just yet, but the verbal agreeing among our founders. That declaring led 13 separate geographical groups of British subjects to separate from powerful Britain and begin their political/governmental life anew with each other.

            One marvels at their courage. Knowing of the power of the British army (had the Redcoats not been a presence on the streets of New England’s cities?), the founders dared to believe that ragtag farmers, small merchants, and they themselves could amass an army and defeat the strongest power of the western world.

            Not all colonists desired separation. Not all of the delegates to our constitutional convention agreed at first on our constitution. That lion of liberty Patrick Henry said he “smelt a rat” and insisted it be amended. Thank him and Madison for the Bill of Rights which is always one Congressional election away from possible dissolution.

            Only one idea led to the written Declaration and its fulfilling document, the Constitution. That idea was the belief that people could govern themselves and did not need kings, queens, viceroys, and potentates to direct their lives, presumably including their personal healthcare. Indeed it was kings and such that for centuries had prevented freedom.

            But separation, division, and re-direction were all necessary for the start-up of political freedom. The same is true today. Sometimes division is not only good but necessary. Today in American politics separations are occurring that at one time in our national life would have been un-thinkable. Re-alignments are occurring.

            How could they not? For the last 13 months our federal government has been behaving like the rulers of old. Just this past week my younger brother informed me that the insurance company he works for had to issue an ultimatum for employees to get vaccinated or be tested weekly and wear a double mask at all times. He was required to give his vaccination card to the HR department to show to OSHA. His company will be fined $10,000 for each employee that is not in compliance. “Never thought government would be doing this to businesses,” he opined.

            OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A “bureau.” Government must keep us safe, healthy, and vaccinated, you see. The mischievous Franklin and the solemn Washington would chuckle and then fight the very notion. Talk about unelected bureaucratic power! Consequently, the discord and division throughout the nation today.

            Division Exhibit A: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce – not necessarily your local chamber – deserted the Republican Party in the 2020 election. The national chamber gave higher scores to Democrats on their voting record. Today’s corporate world, instead of attending to business, is pontificating on race, homosexual rights, and “equity.” House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy recently stated, “Big Business is not welcome back if and when Republicans get back in power.” That, dear reader, is a political divide worth noting. Oh, how far the corporate world has drifted from that true Republican Calvin Coolidge who asserted, “The business of America is business.”

            Exhibit B: Traditionally, Republicans have been viewed as the friends of business and Democrats the friend of the common man. Today the common people/ordinary citizens, particularly manual laborers, still support a Republican billionaire. The Democrat Party is no longer the refuge of ordinary citizens but primarily of the intelligentsia, academia, college students, professional leftists, and socialists, a momentous turn-around.

            If politics is downstream from culture, then politics will be noble only when the culture is noble. We look at the smashing and trashing of our cities, at coarsening language, and at governmental overreach and blame it on bad politics. But youthful smashing and trashing springs from fatherlessness; coarse language springs from weakened homes; and governmental overreach springs from a belief system that simply loves governmental largesse.

            The slog which the nation now finds itself in is deeper than politics. It is a mental/spiritual/philosophical state brought on by the abandonment of that great idea of the founders, that is, individual liberty, not bureaucratic rule or executive mandates. We have allowed a virus – more precisely its managers – to ease us further into loss of freedom. We’ve also ceased “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions,” as the closing words of the Declaration state.

            More division and re-alignment are likely. The ’22 and ‘24 elections will reveal whether we prefer the great idea set forth in New England barely two and a half centuries ago or subservience to Big Brother.

Roger Hines

1/11/22

 

 

                                Can Racism Be Cured?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/8/22

            Several years ago my wife and I walked to our car from a movie theater, having just viewed “The Help.” The book and movie were Kathryn Stockett‘s true-to-life account of growing up in Jackson, Mississippi in the cultural tradition of domestic Black help, particularly maids. Stockett’s family engaged in the practice that vividly illustrated the unequal world of segregation.

            The movie highlighted the utter subservience of Blacks to Whites and the cruel and silly social distancing that White women, particularly, expected of their Black help. Black maids never ate with their White employer. They set aside the plate and fork they would use so that utensils were never mixed with those of the White family they served. Actually the movie was about class as much as race.

            As soon as my wife and I got inside our car I began to weep. After getting hold of myself I managed 5 words: “That’s exactly how it was.”

             I grew up in Mississippi where segregation was rank.  I watched as Black children and teens walked from the edge of town past my family’s house to a crumbling shack called a school. I knew about the unpaved muddy streets in the “Black section” of town. That too was how it was.

            I cranked my car and drove from the theater toward the street. Just before reaching it I became emotional again and had to pull over. The memories in my pocket would not stay put. Of all things, it took a movie to make them explode.

            Why had these memories not exploded sooner? How could I at age 18 write a column for the college student newspaper titled “A Defense of Legal Segregation”? Why did I move from a sensitive child who understood and abhorred the power structure of segregation to a teenager who was a racist? The answer to these questions is that tradition is strong. Whether good or bad, it clings to us. We honor it and it shapes us. As I left childhood, I began to accept the tradition around me.

            My years of racism were from age 13 to 19. The time was 1958 to 1963. During those years I was not one bit bothered by White men calling grown Black men “Boy,” or by the fact that my brothers and sisters and I weren’t expected to say “Sir” to Black men or “Ma’am” to Black women.

            What I am describing is not “systemic racism,” a horrid expression that almost makes racism excusable. My racism was acquired. Segregation was a social order. I was no victim of a system. I was certainly no “privileged White.” I was an adherent who at the bottom of his heart knew that Blacks were not inferior and that Whites were wrong to employ an evil social order for their own benefit.

            When I was 19 something happened that changed my heart. Guess what. It was a national conference of Southern Baptist youths sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention. Did I say “Southern”? Did I say 1963? At the conference, speakers boldly approached the topic of segregation and race. Preachers and other prominent leaders challenged approximately a thousand youths to examine their hearts and minds regarding “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

            I stood convicted and I confessed. Once again I was a 12-year-old who had not been tainted by an evil tradition. I felt free from the weight of my sin and free to oppose openly the sin I had committed.

            Often when confession is made, forgiveness is needed as well. Wealthy Al Sharpton, a Reverend, has not forgiven. Neither has wealthy Jesse Jackson or wealthy, joyless Joy Reid of MSNBC. I wish they would. I believe they would experience the freedom I and so many others have experienced. They choose to rattle old bones rather than forgive and live. Countless Blacks refute them.

            My freedom led me to teach in an all Black school in my second year of teaching. The faculty at George Washington Carver Jr. High School in Meridian, Mississippi remains one of the delights of my life. Today it’s a supreme joy to live in a neighborhood where Blacks and Whites love and respect each other and to attend a church, Kennesaw First Baptist, where the same is true.

            How things have changed. Today Mississippi has more Blacks per capita and more Black elected officials than any other state in the nation. I’m told that America elected and re-elected a Black president. Someone tell the old line media.

            Last week my wife and I watched the old movie, “Sounder.” Watch it and be thankful that things have changed. Be thankful that we are not any longer a nation of racists.

 

Roger Hines

1/5/22

           

           

           

 

                         London, 1802; America, 2022

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

            Two hundred twenty years ago English poet William Wordsworth, who was by no means a Puritan, took pen in hand and called on the great, deceased Puritan poet, John Milton. “Milton! Thou should’st be living at this hour / England hath need of thee,” Wordsworth wrote.

            In one of his most famous sonnets, “London 1802,” Wordsworth made explicit his distress over conditions in England and all of Europe at the opening of the 19^th century. A lover of France, he was saddened that, unlike the American Revolution, the French Revolution was not successful. Indeed, Napolean was elected Consul for Life in 1802. Wordsworth was grieved by what he considered “England’s betrayal of her heritage of freedom and virtue.”

             Milton is most remembered for his classic epics, “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained.” Knowing of Milton’s high reputation, Wordsworth invoked the famous Puritan to make his point about England’s social, moral, and political climate. Not a religious man, Wordsworth still saw in Milton a strength of character that England needed.

             Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Reagan, thou should’st be living at this hour. America hath need of thee! Like Patrick Henry, I would rather be sick and free than be healthy and not free. Oh, but the Covid “crisis” has not come to such an extreme choice, you say. Yes, it has. Seems to me things are getting fishier and fishier. No matter how many cities are ravaged with violent destruction, no matter if crime statistics have shot through the roof, and no matter if the most powerful nation in the world has fled like a scared rabbit from its enemy, our president and his trusty bureaucrats continue trying to turn our minds to anything but. Even though the covid variants are real, I suspect we all know when the fear-mongering will end: well before the November election.         

Cynicism? Look, 340,000,000 citizens, 814,000 deaths. That’s .0023 % of the population, every death of which is sad beyond measure. It’s true that a pandemic covers the globe, but numbers and words often become weapons in the hands of those who need a weapon to sway people’s minds. Inside the USA, Covid has not brought death to a large number. Stating this cold fact can increase the grief of those who have lost loved ones to Covid, yet facts are facts and life can be made easier when we acknowledge them.  Covid has unnecessarily brought the limitation of freedom. Lost freedom is always difficult to regain. So are devastated livelihoods.

            My own four-week bout with Covid and the two-week wind-down that followed were as awful as the aftermath of open heart surgery five years before: incessant pain, total fatigue, and unfamiliar loneliness. My salvation was a stalwart wife, wondrous doctors and nurses, and the grace of God. I’m thankful to be alive. But my little story is miniscule compared to the many accounts of lost livelihoods and freedoms, lost because a virus has been politicized.  Compare the stats of Florida and Texas to those of New York and New Jersey. Population density differences of the south and north aside, the lockdowns in the north have devastated far more livelihoods than have the more relaxed policies in the south.  The differences between how these two southern states and the two northern states have handled lockdowns is instructive. The condescending, moral superiority of those who criticize non-vaxers is repugnant.

            Which brings us to Henry, Jefferson, and Reagan. As everyone knows, Patrick Henry thundered, “Give me liberty or give me death.” His speeches in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the life he lived show that he meant it. Jefferson said, “Law is often nothing more than the tyrant’s will and is always so when it violates the rights of an individual.” Jefferson abhorred the lingering tyranny in Europe and wished to keep it out of America. Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problems; it’s the cause of most of them.” This happy warrior repeated this theme in every speech he delivered.

             “Altar, sword, pen, and fireside,” (the pulpit, the government, the press, the home), wrote Wordsworth, are letting England down. So are our institutions today letting America down. Politicized pulpits, unelected bureaucracy, a sold out press, and weakened homes have rendered the nation “bereft of inward happiness.”

 Intrusive government is bringing America down far, far from the Jeffersonian ideal. We need a second opinion on Covid and its management but we’re not getting it. For instance, the 50,000 plus distinguished signers (doctors, epidemiologists, virologists, citizens) of the Great Barrington Declaration are still being ignored. Something’s fishy. What’s really scary is the acquiescence (and moral superiority) of those who swallow every word Dr. Fauci utters.

Wordsworth, America hath need of thee as well.

Roger Hines

12/23/21