Evaluating the Evaluators

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/12/22

            The lead editorial in this past Tuesday’s Marietta Daily Journal was music to many ears. It was titled, “Cognia due for a review of its own.”

             What’s Cognia? Good question. First of all it is one of those many prissy words/names, the likes of which are popping up everywhere for businesses of all stripes. Remember how we twisted up our faces when we first heard the name “Truist”? I mean, a baseball park and a bank  named “Truist”? There are other examples of facial-distorting names here and there, but you get the point.

             Cognia is the name of the private accrediting agency that either accredits or doesn’t accredit the school systems that employ it to evaluate their schools. As for the agency’s name, I’m just guessing that Cognia was chosen because it sounds like “cognition” or is perhaps a play on the educational expression, “cognitive skills.” Lord, I don’t really know. I only know that AdvancED and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, two of Cognia’s former names, are fairly clear and don’t make you wonder quite so much what the organization does.

            Yes, the MDJ editorial struck a chord with me. First, it clearly stated the reason Cognia is in the news, that being its findings on Cobb’s public schools which it recently voided, but only after “school administrators lost hundreds of hours preparing hundreds of pages of rebuttals to Cognia’s original special review report.” Cognia’s findings came from an interim evaluation prompted by the Democrat members of the school board. Its report showed more concern for infighting on the board than on things that matter most such as student achievement. Has there ever been a school board that had no infighting?

            The editorial also claimed that Cobb County schools are “among the best; our students among the most well-educated; and the district among the most well run.” I can only testify that  I taught in Cobb County Schools for 32 years from 1971 to 2003. From working at three high schools and the central office I can say that my colleagues and superiors were the best that anyone could desire. Names like Kermit Keenum, Stanley Wrinkle, Larry Hinds, Betty Gray, Jim Traylor, Don Murphy, Roger Russell, Dexter Mills, Dale Gaddis, and Wade Scholes will dance around in my brain and heart for as long as I live. The same is true for fellow classroom teachers who stepped into administrative leadership like Corky Kell, Carole Kell, Grace Calhoun, Terry Poor, Stella Ross, Carla Northcutt, and Hilda Wilkins. Cobb’s teachers and administrators have been the finest of people and the finest of educators.

From all accounts, except for Cognia’s original ill-conceived “volunteer” assessment of the current board, current superintendent Ragsdale and his team are still carrying high the torch. I can assure you that school board member and former student of mine David Chastain is equipped to serve, by both intelligence and love for his home county. I hope Chastain still has that touch of benign mischief that helps people around him lighten up and have a good day.  I’m also immensely proud of former students Ashlynn Campbell, principal of Harrison High and Keith Hansen, head baseball coach at Allatoona High.

Since our schools are good, that necessarily means our county must be good.  Cobb County has always reminded me of my hometown of Forest, Mississippi. Forest was a forward looking place with political and community leaders who worked hard to affect the quality of life for everybody, even those out in the county. Its aristocracy was a friend to every commoner. They all knew and respected my tenant farmer father. Forest had its own separate school district and for reasons I don’t recall, bused in and educated quite a few county kids. Like my own hometown and county, Cobb County is still a good place and its schools reflect it.

What then should we make of Cognia and its recent stumble? The editorial, penned by Vice President of Content J.K. Murphy, addresses that too: “Cognia holds our schools and students hostage and Georgia taxpayers cough up the ransom. That, on its face, is wrong.” Murphy went on to tout the work of Senator Lindsey Tippins who has filed legislation that would “change how Cognia goes about its business.”

 There are things about public education generally that drive me nuts, but with the present majority of our current school board at the helm, I’ve no doubt common sense will prevail. Senator Tippins is good at fixing things. So let’s get back to mathematics, science, history, English, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson!   

 

Roger Hines

March 10, 2022 

           

 

                          Who said the World is Changing?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/5/22

            It’s 1939. After invading Poland on September 1, Hitler secures a Nazi victory within a month. Declaring war on Germany two days later, Britain and France would stand by for eight months before giving any substantial help to their European neighbor. It would be a full two years later before the United States came to Poland’s aid. Meanwhile, Hitler parades down the streets of Danzig celebrating his growing power.

            It’s 1954. World War II is only 9 years in the past. I’m 10 years old and my younger brother Carlton is 7, but Carlton is just as enrapt as I whenever our sister-in-law Antonia tells us about the evil Mussolini: “He no good. He the reason we must run for shelter from Amedicans and others who bombed Italy. My Pa-pa no like him. He glad that Italy finally turn against Germany.”

            It’s 2022. Men still love power, nations are still fighting each other, and America’s president wrongfully preaches that unity is the answer to everything. Thanks to Russia and debilitated Ukraine, we have been awakened from the assumption that ground wars are passé.  We’ve watched as, in a matter of days, political winds have blown our leaders from “Follow the science” to “You may now de-mask.” We’re told by educated people that boys can be girls and girls can be boys. With apologies to Thomas Paine, “These are the times that” … make us shake our heads in disbelief.

            The nation of Russia sits at the top of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China. Racially, Russians are westerners. Philosophically/politically, they are not. Like the history of so many Asian nations, Russia’s history is tyrannical, autocratic, and unspeakably disregardful of individual rights. Russia’s history is sad. For the 304 years that the Romanov family ruled, right up to the 1917 Communist takeover, approximately 90% of the Russian people were peasants. Lenin and Stalin certainly did not improve upon the Romanovs. Remember, theirs was a union of “socialist” republics.

 When poet Rudyard Kipling, who loved his adopted land of India, wrote “Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” he was faulted for guess what: racism. But Kipling was referring to the vast difference in how Easterners and Westerners think. Consider: did the United States lose the Vietnam War in part because Westerners are impatient and results-oriented while Easterners are more patient and willing to stick it out? Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

As Ronald Reagan reminded us often, freedom is always one generation away from extinction. One reason for this is that too many people like goodies and ease. An abundance of college professors has pulled our youths toward leftist politics that decries capitalism and hard work and preaches income equality, free education, and a wholesale remaking of the economy to fight climate change.

Of the starving French peasants who could not buy bread, Queen Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution reportedly said, “Let them eat cake.” John Kerry, just after Putin started targeting Ukrainian citizens, stated he hoped that “after this Ukrainian conflict,” Putin would turn to fighting climate change. The more things change … the more the world’s elites reveal their scorn for the masses.

The mind of the tyrant doesn’t seem to change either. Long is the list of tyrants who have affected humanity for the worse. If the dawn of a new age of tyranny is upon us, it could well be because we just didn’t care enough about history to read a simple 10^th grade world history textbook, or to take Western Civilization seriously in college, or to read an occasional newspaper. Freedom requires a little bit of knowledge.

The former KGB colonel Putin, tagged by some as a KGB “throat slitter,” is a brute and his attack on innocent Ukrainian civilians has been brutal. When, oh when, will we hear from NATO or the European Union? European unpredictability hasn’t changed either.

Tyranny isn’t always initiated by brutes like Putin. Sometimes it comes from the globalists among us whether they wear the suit of the corporate CEO, the jeans of the tech company head, the robe of the college president, or the condescending smirk of the Hollywood actor. All enemies of freedom of speech, these players are using the ploy of the Genesis serpent and the spider who said to the fly, “Come into my parlor.” It is these tyrants, not the Putin type, who without guns wish to “transform” America.

Either way, tyranny is tyranny. It hasn’t changed.

 

Roger Hines

3/2/22

           

                 

 

                       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