A Gamechanger

I watched the documentary Uncle Tom last night and recommend it to every American voter. It's a movie about black conservatives. Yes, they exist, and in greater numbers than many would think.

Take the time to watch a film that is important, powerful, timely, and true. The future of our country depends on the triumph of facts over falsehoods, information over emotion. Uncle Tom will help take us there. Watch, and learn.

Uncle Tom

Happy Father's Day

A grandfather is a man with silver in his hair and gold in his heart.

- Unknown

Celebrating Flag Day

Long may it wave.

For Fear of Country

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

- Isaiah 5:20


I grew up during the 1960s, a time of unprecedented turmoil. I've observed a great deal of strife since then, so it takes a significant amount of upheaval to capture my attention. But, this time, I am concerned for my country.

Although the current tumult in our nation engulfed us with shocking speed, none of us should be surprised that such chaos is occurring. All of my life, I have watched as our moral underpinnings have been chipped away to the point of perilous fragility. When societal foundations become so damaged, inevitable collapse is only a matter of time.

I was a child when prayer was forbidden in public schools. That was a giant step towards the erosion of religious influence in our culture. Until the past half century, religion was one of our country's strongest pillars. In the mid-1960s, the "War on Poverty" exploded the growth of the socialized state. The numerous social programs, including welfare payments, led to increased dependence upon the government and less reliance upon family, especially within lower income households. Strong and stable families headed by a father and a mother, a second pillar of American life, over time became less commonplace.

The Vietnam War brought tremendous amounts of discord into American life. It's impossible to encapsulate in a few words the vast and lingering ramifications of Vietnam. Suffice to say that the media and the citizenry both became permanently more skeptical of government officials and their decisions. The military was viewed in a more questioning manner, also. Two more revered pillars, our government and our military, wounded by the enduring tragedy of Vietnam.

Beginning with the Vietnam war protests, colleges began their transition from halls of learning to hotbeds of activism. Classes in such over-arching subjects as Western civilization, American history, Civics, and English were purged from lists of required courses, replaced by various isolating studies in identity politics. America has been fractured into warring tribes by an academic elite with a misguided agenda that purposefully separated us. The national motto "E Pluribus Unum" has devolved into a quaint memory. We are no longer one people from many; we are many people, divided amongst ourselves. The educational system, long a stalwart pillar of a united America, has become a primary source of our differences.

The chipping away at our unitive values has continued through the decades with raging debates on social and ethical issues. The sexual revolution, civil rights, abortion, the war on terror, illegal immigration, gay marriage, transgender identity, and other seething topics, all tore at the time-honored fabric of American civility in debate. Truths and traditions were continuously challenged and ruthlessly overturned. Terrible things were said by people on all sides of every debate. In the past few years, it seems our country has lost the ability to speak to one other; citizens are screaming past each other instead.

We have now reached a critical point where the boiling stew of social ills and grievances spills over onto the national stovetop and makes a dreadful mess. A mess can be cleaned up, of course, but only if one has the tools to do so. My fear is that, over the decades of dissension and the destruction of our foundational principles and our institutions, we have lost the ability to make things right. We appear to have lost our moorings. Too many of us no longer recognize right from wrong. We have allowed ourselves to become untethered from the home base of our history. In today's bleeding and fragmented America, Lincoln's "House Divided" speech is especially relevant:

"I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” 

My deepest fear is that we will become "all the other."

A Lesson on Controlled Chaos

A Lesson on Controlled Chaos

A Highly Selective Virus

Who knew that protesting had such magical powers to protect human beings from virus transmission? While law-abiding citizens are being hauled off in handcuffs for being at the beach or in the park, shoulder-to-shoulder protesters, mask-free rioters, and grimy-fisted looters roam freely throughout the land with impunity.

It would appear that only solid citizens must be protected from the ravages of COVID-19, and we aren't of much concern to the police or the media at the moment. Law enforcement officers seem thoroughly preoccupied with the marauders' destructive activities. So this might be a favorable time for the rest of us to pack that picnic basket and head out for the day. Just be sure to choose a location far from America's trashed and burning cities. You wouldn't want to bump into any of these COVID-resistant rioters. That would be hazardous to your health, from both a virus and a violence perspective.

If you do plan a day trip, don't forget to bring along the hand sanitizers and masks. Remember, only the protesters enjoy full immunity to COVID-19 and are exempt from its cumbersome rules, restrictive regulations, and dire health consequences. Be safe out there!

"Social Distancing" is so last month...

What Lincoln Said

Little, if anything, can be added to what has already been written and recorded of the willful, widespread violence and destruction taking place within our country. But if we hearken back to the chillingly prescient words of President Abraham Lincoln nearly two centuries ago in his Lyceum Address, we can find a vivid warning against and a simple prescription to heal our current national distress.

The full address is lengthy but so relevant and timely that it is well worth reading in its entirety. Lincoln delivered this speech in response to the murder of an African American man in St. Louis.

Excerpt from Lincoln's Lyceum Address:

"...I know the American People are much attached to their Government;--I know they would suffer much for its sake;--I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.

Here then, is one point at which danger may be expected.

The question recurs, "how shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

While ever a state of feeling, such as this, shall universally, or even, very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom..."

President Abraham Lincoln - The Lyceum Address
January 27, 1838