Innocents and Miscreants
In this world, you will always have trouble (John 16:33).
Jesus Christ
Just when I thought it might be safe to go out again, tragedy struck. An atmospheric high-pressure dome trapped moist air from the Gulf of America over the hill country of Texas, producing a deluge of rain and catastrophic flooding of the Guadalupe River. We Southerners understand the concept of a gully washer, but the Texas rainstorm and flooding were described as a “generational” event. The death toll now tops 100 and includes many children who were at a church camp. Loss of life is tragic, but especially painful with the death of innocents.
Disasters happen all the time. However, because we have the internet, we are immediately aware of suffering and wars all over the planet. For once, I’m not being overtly critical of the media, because my analysis of events for this opinion column is dependent on factual reports.
Reporting the facts is one thing. But politicizing facts is another. Elon Musk’s AI creation, Grok, was recently caught parroting false reports collected from the New York Times, PBS, Reuters, etc. When confronted with the facts, Grok admitted its erroneous analysis. Actually, the AI’s original conclusions were reflective of the biases of Grok’s programmers.
There is a computer adage that goes junk in – junk out. Apparently, this is also true for the sophisticated computing of AI. Remember this the next time you use artificial (manmade) intelligence. Do you recall the racialized Nazis created by Google’s AI (Gemini)? Perhaps a human brain filled with sketchy facts will then regurgitate the same. This certainly seems to be operative at Ivy League universities.
The Texas flood disaster was quickly politicized by the villainous left, but the salient facts prove otherwise: warnings were given regarding the weather, National Weather Service (NOAA) staffing was appropriate, and in fact more than usual, and the budgetary cuts that Grok and Democrats reported are not scheduled to go into effect until 2026.
I’ve often wondered why a liberal friend and a conservative like me can look at an issue and see something entirely different. Since we both seem rational and come from the same culture we should at least be able to agree upon facts. But actually, the difference extends beyond facts to the realm of truth, a more challenging concept requiring judgment.
The left-of-center digital news outlet Axios recently interviewed two dozen Congressional Democrats and reported July 7, 2025, that the party’s base is demanding their congressmen “fight dirty, break the rules and not be afraid to get hurt” in opposing President Trump and ICE.
The radical base is the deranged people you saw lately at the “no kings” marches or at previous “rent-a-crowd” protests/riots. These are the delusional people screaming outside a NYC police station on July 4th instead of being with family and friends for barbecue and celebratory fireworks. These are the deranged, delusional and dangerous people who recently tried to ambush ICE agents or those who fired on officers at a border protection facility.
Understandably, elected Democrats are scared of their dysfunctional base. When I practiced medicine, disturbed people in the emergency room scared me as well.
Some years ago, Dan Brown wrote the book “Angels and Demons.” And the book “Saints and Villains” about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Nazis by Denise Giardina also captures the same contrast between good and evil which is the premise of this essay.
The Axios article reminded me of a report in Psychology Today where two-thirds of patients in therapy were liberal Democrats and 94% of therapists were liberal. Columbia University has reported that “liberals indicate feelings of depression and anxiety more frequently than conservatives” and “report poorer mental health.” Pew Research reports similar findings where “white liberal women have twice the rate of mental illness as conservatives.”
Some have seen the hurricane flooding in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, summertime heat waves or “wars and rumors of wars,” earthquakes in Iran and now a 25-foot high “wall of water” in Texas as evidence of apocalyptic end-times. I don’t.
However, Jesus alluded to the end times in his Olivet discourse (Matthew 24:14). He said only God knows of the end. You should read Jesus’ words and then ask yourself if the Internet has indeed “preached the gospel in the whole world” heralding end times.
Recently, a friend asked me how many essays I’ve written for The Knoxville Focus. Although my essays have a numerical order, I don’t pay a lot of attention to that detail, so I told him 800 or so. I was wrong. I looked it up, and this is essay number 922. It’s been a good run since I started writing for The Focus in 2008. I think I’ll try to make it to 1000. That should be enough, since that will be approximately 1 million words.
Somehow, July 4th felt different this year. Maybe it was a sense that America was back on the right course after a series of victories.
The French have a phrase that perhaps captured my feelings on Independence Day. The French say, “Je ne sais quoi,” which is loosely translated as the feeling of a pleasing quality.
But my thoughts were more than just a feeling on July 4. President Trump has dealt the left and forces of evil multiple defeats over the last half year, culminating in the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill and decimation of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
I told friends that we should celebrate these hard-won victories with family, friends and fireworks on our nation’s birthday. And then come Monday, we must reengage because the hate-filled anti-American miscreants are not yet defeated.
I say, Onward Christian Soldiers! We have a country to save for our children. And to paraphrase the Star Trek Borg, patriotic “resistance is [not] futile.” It is our duty.
