I used to read the New York Times, the Washington Post and listen to the news on National Public Radio. Not anymore, though I still listen to classical music on the NPR affiliate, WUOT. Nonetheless, I am well aware of the major news media’s offerings because it is impossible to escape their tentacles of disinformation which pervade all areas of our culture.
I’m reading a fictionalized biography about CS Lewis and the writer, Joy Davidson, who would later become his wife. Many know of Lewis as an Oxford don who became the most important Christian apologist of the 20th century. The book is built around the letters that Lewis and Davidson wrote to each other which formed the nucleus of a friendship and then their marriage. If you are unaware of Lewis’ personal life I heartily recommend the movie Shadowlands starring Anthony Hopkins as Professor Lewis. In offering writing advice, Lewis told Davidson that “What does not deeply concern you will not interest your reader.” In other words, a writer must write from the heart. I agree. Otherwise, the writing reads like pabulum or worse.
It’s fanciful to take Jiminy Cricket’s advice and “wish upon a star.” My grandchildren have yet to relinquish magic in the rite of passage into adulthood. I sometimes wish I could recapture that which was lost. Shakespeare once borrowed from Biblical wisdom and observed we are “twice a child and once a man.” In other words, we often come full circle to our beginnings. Perhaps a component of growing older is embracing this reality.
I wish we were not at each other‘s throats. But this is a fanciful wish given the hatred and enmity which motivates so many these days. It would be nice to just write about medical issues, travel, the arts or focus on spirituality. But, this is impossible in the maelstrom we find ourselves. Interestingly, this has been done before. In 1775 Thomas Paine perhaps said it best. “Gentlemen cry, peace, peace! But there is no peace, the war has already begun.”
So, as painful as it is, I write about what “deeply concerns” me, and I suspect concerns many of you as well.
Propaganda is an integral part of war. Its modern iteration is what we call fake news. Actually, the notion of news has become fanciful, and I wonder if it is even possible to stay informed given the pervasiveness of current propaganda.
I’ll give one example of propaganda which came to my attention this week. The New York Times began its 1619 Project. And since the Gray Lady is the de facto leader of the major news media, expect to see their revisionist history of America. Russian collusion did not get rid of Trump. The Mueller investigation, like the Kavanaugh hearings, were a joke. And white nationalism and white supremacy are so patently absurd, that a rational person discounts the abject lunacy of such a claim. Since nothing is working, progressive-socialists are returning to their bread and butter issue of racism, trotted out by Democrats every 2 to 4 years.
The so-called journalists of the New York Times have been ordered by their editors and owners to promote the notion that America did not begin in 1776, but in 1619, when the first slaves were brought to the New World. As a result, America was founded on racism and is therefore tainted and can only be made great again if it is torn down and rebuilt. This sinister revisionist ploy was the premise of George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel “1984.”
Apparently, the Democrat Presidential candidates, limousine liberals of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the left coast and academia ascribe to “White Guilt,” another interesting book written some years ago by Shelby Steele. It is amazing that the race hustlers continue to focus on skin color and denigrate themselves with virtue signaling.
These people must not be students of history or the Bible, because since Deuteronomy people are not held accountable for the actions of others. I am not guilty of racism or slavery and I refuse to accept their ridiculous premise that America is evil because there was slavery in the world in the 17th century. You would think America might garner some credit for fighting a horrible Civil War to abolish slavery, but it’s never enough for a liberal. Ask Bozo Beto, Buttegieg, Kamala Harris, Crazy Bernie, Spartacus or Pocahontas Warren, who see racism everywhere. Even Uncle Joe must dance to the Progressive Pied Pipers mantra of “racism, racism, racism!”
As I gaze out from my porch I see a peaceful forest drinking deeply from a welcome summer shower. Our horses graze in the distance, my kids and grandkids are doing fine, and Becky and I have been blessed with enough. If I didn’t turn on the news or read the latest mayhem, I could imagine a utopian existence. But the word utopia comes from a satire written by Thomas More and means nowhere. Henry the eighth would later have his Chancellor executed because of More’s principled stance that no man is above God.
In the 1200s Thomas Aquinas and fellow scholastics articulated a hierarchy of laws which I envision as concentric circles. The universal law of God contains all of creation. Within this sphere are God’s divine laws such as the 10 Commandments. A smaller circle encompasses nature’s law (natural law). And the smallest circle of function is Man’s law, whether it is a constitution or speed limits.
I have lived long enough to acquire a modicum of wisdom, and I am no longer conflicted about what is right. The Democrat loons and the New York Times are wrong. God is supreme, not man. America is not evil, but a source for good. My skin may be white, but I am not a racist. And when you hear this bilge preached, simply push back by saying, “I do not accept your premise.” A constructive dialogue may ensue. But, if it doesn’t, then do as Jesus’ half-brother James advised, “Resist the devil, and he will flee away.”
