Everybody Plays the Fool

Reality always wins in the end, although it may take a beating in the early stages. We know this. The earth is not really at the center of the universe. Slavery is evil. And that well-known chain of sub restaurants does not serve real meat.

And one of the biggest falsehoods in today’s culture is that sex and gender are not binary. Men can be women, and women can be men. A man can get pregnant. We’ve all heard of this.

While it may be cool and trendy to consider oneself “non-binary”, when we grow up a little bit, most people realize they want to be one or the other. Many millennials today say they identify as LGBT, but they don’t really live that way. The vast majority of men will always be attracted to women, and vice-versa.

What goes along with that is our new approach to referring to other people. We have to know what each individual’s personal pronouns are. For centuries, pronouns belonged to different sexes. Men were he/him/his and women were she/her/hers. But no more. An individual can have their own pronouns. The most popular variants are they/them/their or made-up words like zie or zer. But we aren’t restricted to those. We can use any words we like for our pronouns.

I’d love to be asked about my personal pronouns. I’d use “me/me/me”. That would make anyone stumble through their words and confuse everyone who listened to them.

And as the advertisement used to say for Ginsu steak knives, “but wait… there’s more.”

These pronouns can change from day to day, hour to hour, and minute to minute. That’s why, at the beginning of a woke educational session, the trainer can ask “What are your personal pronouns today?” So not only would a trainer have to handle individual pronouns for each person, but they could also change each day.

And woe to you if you forget someone’s personal pronouns. You would be canceled quicker than a hound dog wolfs down biscuits and gravy. You would be the pariah of your goat yoga class.

I find it completely unworkable for the simple reasons that it’s impossible to manage these special names from day-to-day. And it’s impossible to even try if you have a room full of woke folk.

So I found it funny that Demi Lovato decided to change to traditional personal pronouns. Here’s the back story. Lovato, a pop star, declared herself to be a “pansexual” last year. My understanding of the term pansexual is that you either are attracted to every gender, or you like having sex with cookware (preferably not while cooking). Anyway, she declared that she wanted to use they/them as her personal pronouns. The Woke World smiled upon her and gave her their blessing (or was it zie’s blessing?).

All of us have done things that are foolish. As the 1972 hit says, “Everybody Plays the Fool.” When we are young, we sometimes listen to foolish things and believe them. Young fools often don’t know better. Many times, they believe some strange new idea simply because a friend or a celebrity they respect believes that idea. They lack a healthy skepticism, and they need a bit more of living to begin to come to their senses. (It is the old fools who are more dangerous. They should know better.)

Demi Lovato’s situation has now changed. On August 2, 2022, Lovato declared that she was now feeling more feminine, so she wanted to go by “she/her”. That left the Twitterverse sparring over whether she was abandoning “they/them” or just adding “she/her” to “they/them”.  Of course, no one in Woketown would object to someone so hip. There are no rules, so leftists get to change them as they go. (That does not go for conservative, though.)

We don’t know why she decided to change her mind, but for someone who really wanted to declare that she was non-binary, she has now painted herself into a corner. I am only guessing here, but I wonder if she has met a guy – or is pursuing a guy – and she wants to be as attractive to him as she can, in whatever way she can. How girlish. How normal. And I bet we will find other people (although probably not all) who have declared their aversion to binary-ness but later actually revert to male or female. Especially if you want to have children and experience the joys of male or female parenthood.

It is difficult to live a happy life unless you dwell in reality. Otherwise, you end up chasing vapor. Proverbs 16:22 tells us “Understanding is a fountain of life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment to fools.” Here’s hoping Miss Lovato has begun the return to reality. Otherwise, she’ll be singing that same old song:

Everybody plays the fool sometimes

There’s no exception to the rule

Listen, baby

It may be factual, may be cruel

I ain’t lyin’

Everybody plays the fool

Spirit Versus Spite

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, we have seen a very violent and angry reaction from the left. They never believed it could happen. After decades of being told that abortion was a fundamental right found in the Constitution, it was inconceivable to them that Roe could ever be declared null and void.

How has the left reacted? Let’s summarize:

• Pro-aborts everywhere initially reacted with screams and angry rhetoric. They took to the streets, blocking traffic and yelling expletives at anyone and everyone they could possibly blame for Roe’s reversal.
• They proclaimed that this would be a summer of rage, and that they would burn down buildings just to register their anger. (Although there was a little of that, it mostly fizzled away.)
• They began to assault and damage crisis pregnancy clinics around the country that provide counseling and material help to women who choose life. Many clinics were vandalized, some were covered with accusatory graffiti, and a few were fire-bombed. Of course, this is illegal.
• They began harassing the Supreme Court judges at their homes, causing their family members and neighbors to be worried for their safety. Protesting Supreme Court justices are illegal, but the left is willing to do it because they know law enforcement in the area won’t do anything. Oh, and one angry, unstable individual was arrested before he could assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.
• Pro-abort legislators threatened to pack the Supreme Court with a majority of pro-abortion judges. This would make the Court nothing more than a political tool to be used at the whim of the political majority.
• Those same legislators began threatening to impose laws on crisis pregnancy clinics that would make it harder for those clinics to operate. (So much for letting women have a “choice”.)
• Other celebrities on the left have suggested using Federal resources to fly women to states where they embrace abortion and opening abortion clinics in national parks.

In short, the pro-abort forces were exhibiting the Power of Spite: using anger, violence, and twisting of our cherished institutions to prevail, even if it involves illegal or dangerous methods.

Abortion Advocates Loathe Their Enemies

All of this spiteful, illegal reaction takes me back to the early days of the pro-life movement. I wasn’t present and active right after the Roe v. Wade decision was announced. It wasn’t until around the mid-1980’s that I awoke to the horror of abortion and became educated and active.

The young pro-life activists were horrified concerning the fate of the preborn unfortunates who were aborted. We shook our heads in disbelief that anyone would think it right to dismember such innocent and weak human beings. And we knew we had to do something to try to protect preborn life. The question how were we going to respond?

Instead of unleashing anger and outrage everywhere, we realized we needed to: 1) help women in crisis pregnancies choose life, 2) save as many preborn babies as possible through laws and practical help, 3) win the hearts and minds of the public, and 4) do all of it legally.

• We protested peacefully outside abortion clinics. We didn’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t, but we tried to abide by the law and show respect for the law.
• If we encountered women who were going into an abortion clinic, we offered to talk to them or give them directions to where they could discuss all options and get help.
• We opened crisis pregnancy centers where women could go for sonograms and pregnancy counseling, regardless of the decisions those women ultimately made about their pregnancies.
• We began identifying pro-life legislators and voted for them.
• Pro-life legislators began to pass pro-life laws. At first, the movement wanted a Constitutional Amendment to make abortion illegal, but that never seemed to catch on. So, instead of an all-or-nothing approach, pro-lifers began to propose and pass incremental bills that worked on the edges of the abortion question, such as waiting periods, informed consent, etc. The incremental approach has paid off, as shown in the Dobbs decision.
• We invited our pro-abortion foes to debates in public to try to win people over.
• We had public, respectful marches at national and state capitols. We’ve had the longest annual civil rights march in our history

This was not easy for us. It was slow and frustrating. It was often difficult to see any progress. There was a time when that frustration caused some in the movement to become extreme, which led to anti-violent blockages of abortion clinics. A very tiny number decided that, since abortion is actually killing another human being, it was okay to hurt or kill those who commit abortion so they wouldn’t kill any more people. That lasted for a brief period, and then we went back to our slow, methodical approach.

Pro-Life Activists Love Their Enemies (and respect the law)

There were many times I marched in freezing weather in our nation’s Capitol so we could protest the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (since the decision was announced in January). Sometimes we marched in snow. During those marches, I often wondered if it was doing any good. Yet the national March For Life continued on.

And we had many other activities year after year. We prayer-walked, we voted, and we donated to the pro-life clinics. There were many successes and many failures. Yet we persevered. It was the Power of Spirit, using forgiveness, winsomeness, and compassion to work within the law and prevail.

The reason the two groups have had such different approaches is very much due to their very different worldviews. Pro-lifers primarily adopt a worldview which embraces order and stability, patriotism, and the fear of God. And since many pro-life people are Christians, we know that we are commanded in the Scriptures to love our enemies. We can oppose them, but we can’t insult and scream at them, become violent, or vandalize and burn their facilities because the same God who is motivating us is also watching us and judging whether we are acting righteously or not.

Contrast that with the CRT-based worldview of the woke-folk who promote abortion in our society. That worldview says everything is about power – one group against another group – constantly fighting for control. Anything you can do to gain an edge over your opponent is fair game. Canceling, humiliating, and physically fighting is okay. And since there’s no Big Kahuna in the sky watching them, then it doesn’t really matter how you win the culture. The only thing that matters is the end results.

In a democracy, there are many groups vying for the ability to propose and enact laws.  If we are going to continue to live in a democracy, I see 2 very different approaches to winning the culture. One is via malice, violence, and crushing your opponent in the dust. The other is winsome, reasoning, and merciful. Now that we have had both approaches on display, I believe the general public will find our approach more compelling than that of the pro-abortion crowd. We will have to see if that is really true.

The Church of England Skipping Down Broad Street

Many of today’s institutions are being infected by the rampant woke virus. They are often motivated by a desire to please fellow woke folk in the executive suite or by the threat of the ever-present cancel culture. That’s because secular institutions often have no solid moral compass. They are ever in search of what is good and right, which changes with the winds of culture.

Christians who allow themselves to be infected by the woke virus are not so much focused on envy or intimidation. (Well, maybe a little.) Mostly, progressive Christians and Christian institutions – who know what truth is because of the Bible – abandon truth because they are weary of pointing people to the narrow road. It’s much easier to point people to a broader path.

A question was submitted to the legislative body of the Anglican Church in England, asking “What is the Church of England’s definition of a woman?” A senior bishop, Dr. Robert Innes, replied that there is “no official definition” of a woman. He went on to state that “until fairly recently definitions of this kind were thought to be self-evident, as reflected in the marriage liturgy.”

The practice of asking individuals to define “woman” has become a litmus test for identifying the virus in individuals and institutions. This was popularized recently by Matt Walsh in his documentary, “What is a Woman?” (By the way, this is a great video if you can see it on The Daily Wire.) Last week, it was also part of an exchange between Senator Josh Hawley and a Berkeley law professor.

We have come to expect that many have swallowed the rainbow-colored woke Koolaid of acceptance of transgenderism. It’s even in the US military.

But the Church of England’s response is different. Of all institutions, churches and denominations who claim the Bible as inspiration know what a woman is.

Notice that Dr. Innes mentioned that the definition of “woman” has long “thought to be self-evident”. In fact, it was only recently that anyone thought to redefine that concept. After all, human beings were made to be divided into two different version of human: male and female. We have 2 different types of genitalia, two different types of gender hormones, two different roles in the reproductive process, and two different ways we participate in raising children.

We know this is self-evident, which is why the woke folk have to use extensive explanations, intimidation, and even force to make people believe there is anything other than male and female. When you promote a lie, you have to work extra hard to make people believe that lie, even if they only believe it outwardly.

Self-evidentiary reality is a central part of Christianity. Jesus said that he was “the way, the truth, and the life”. Truth is a part of his nature.

And it is evident on Scripture. Genesis 2 describes how God created both male and female. Our record of truth only mentions male and female. There’s nothing in between. Reproduction as crafted by God is only between a man and a woman. This is directly designed by God and is intended for our good. Yet, our culture rejects what God intended for our good. The original couple rejected Eden, God’s paradise for us, and today’s culture rejects what little is left of that paradise by rejecting the institution of marriage instituted in that paradise.

The Church knows better than the culture, but the Church of England nevertheless feigns ignorance.

Innes said it was self evident “as reflected in the marriage liturgy”. That liturgy is drawn directly from Genesis 2:20-24, which said

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’    for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The Bible specifically states that marriage is just between a man and a woman, and this act is itself a testament that men and women are different. God’s people know what a woman is because the Bible shows man’s need for a life partner. It is that partnership that required the need for woman to be created. It wasn’t the need for reproduction. (The Bible doesn’t mention how reproduction would have occurred without women.)

Innes went on to respond, saying that the Church of England “has begun to explore the marriage complexities associated with gender identity and points to the need for additional care and thought to be given in understanding our commonalities and differences as people made in the image of God.” This gobbledygook simply means that the Anglican Church has bowed it’s knee to the Transgender Autocracy. The Word of God is not paramount within the Church of England. Man’s thoughts and feelings are. Innes and the rest of that Church’s leadership simply don’t want to be seen as being out of step with the sensibilities of modern culture.

What is the width of the door that leads to heaven? It’s small and narrow. And how wide is the door that leads to destruction? It’s wide and broad. Many Christians, tired of pointing people to the narrow gate, think that pointing people to a wide gate will be better, yet it leads to destruction. Christians should know that. The Church of England should know that. And we believers should continue to point people in the right direction.  

I appreciate all those Christians who defied the Church of England and formed the Anglican Church in America to fight off the woke infection. I hope they will be able to convince their former governing body to stand for God’s truth.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14

As American as “Birthing Person” and Apple Pie

The National Education Association, which seems to be oblivious to the actual educational needs of America’s children, proposed replacing the word “mother” with “birthing parent”. This is primarily to placate the “T” within the LGBT community.

The Transgender Community are the dictators within our nation right now. Their wants and needs take precedence over the needs of all other groups, including children, women and feminists, straight people, and even homosexuals. This has brought about radical changes in prisons, athletics, education, privacy in bathrooms and gyms, healthcare, adoptions, and more. The Trans Autocracy and their allies demand that we all change our lives so that this very small minority of individuals does not experience any discomfort whatsoever. All established norms of working must be overturned to make room for the new King/Queen of public life.

Let me step down off my soap box just a bit here. Whew! Sometimes that can be exhausting. But let me get to what I really wanted to say.

The name “mother” is so very important to our society. Our mother is more than just someone who gave us birth. We all know that a mother is very important to us. A mother cares for us when we are helpless. She holds us when we cry, bandages our boo-boos, and nurses us back to health when we get sick. “Mama” is the first word that comes out of our mouth and is often the last word uttered by a soldier dying from wounds.

I can just imagine Ms. Woke Birthing Partner trying to teach her child their first word.

Mother/birthing person: “Say bir…  You can do it. Say bir…  Birthing person… Bir-bir-bir… Come on…”

Toddler: Cocks their head, looks funny at the mother, and finally says, “Mama!”

A mother has a lifetime responsibility to their child. Obviously, that responsibility is heavily tilted toward the early part of life, but they are someone who have a lifelong presence in our lives. And when we are grown, we look back at our mother as someone we treasure and hold dear, even if we no longer live with them. And when we have children of our own, we want to present them to our mother who now holds the additional title of “grandmother”.

That’s very, very different from someone who simply gave birth to you. “Birthing person” sounds like they gave birth, dropped the child off at an agency, and then drove off to a late supper at Denny’s.

I realize that there are many mothers who failed in many regards to be that loving Mom in the life of their child. (Almost every mother actually feels that they failed to be a good mother, even if that was not the case.) Nevertheless, children hold that image of the loving, wonderful mom inside their heart. They know what that mother would be like, even if their real-life mother was not that. And over the years, most of us begin to overlook small imperfections in our mothers, often elevating them in our eyes even if they did have their failings.

And for those who had truly horrid mothers, my heart goes out to them. They go around with that mother-shaped hole in their heart, longing for a memory – any memory – that would give that mother some right, however small, to be elevated at least a bit in their minds. Some never find that memory, but often we do.

Regardless of imperfections – large and small – within every mother, we all know what a mother is supposed to be like. It’s as if God ordained that in the minds of all children, and we retain that ideal throughout our lives.

Much has been done by the hidden Marxists in plain sight who have undermined the traditional family in American society. Some degradation has also come from other quarters. We have trivialized divorce. We have pushed mothers out of their homes into the workforce so they can “fulfill their dreams” and keep up with the Joneses. The concept of “family” is not what it used to be. Now, a family in popular culture can be any collection of humans and pets who seem to hang out together.

It’s time to push back against the canceling of motherhood. “Mom” will actually never be canceled, although many will fight to do so. Let’s ignore the new “wokelish” language and get back to recognizing Mom.

It’s Not Crazy If I Can See It In My Mind

It’s a common dream of children. Jump off of a roof with an umbrella and float down gently to the ground. We get it from watching someone do it in a cartoon. Or Mary Poppins. But many times, it’s just because it seems like it would work. The umbrella is like a parachute, right? If we just jump off and hang on to the umbrella, we’ll be okay, right?

And I imagined it to be so as well, so I decided to do that myself. It wasn’t that I was going to try it or test it. I just “knew” it would work, so I found one of my parents’ umbrellas, climbed up to the roof, and jumped off.

I’m sure you know what happened. I fell. I know you expected me to break something and get hurt, but I just jumped off my garage and only fell half a story. The umbrella did nothing at all. Boy, was I glad I didn’t have further to fall.

Many other kids have tried this same thing, only those typically jump from a higher height, and the results of those jumps had worse endings.

Jump ahead to 2009. I was working for a small energy technology startup in Raleigh. My company made a device that would help home owners save energy on large energy-using devices like HVACs and water heaters. The software in the device helped homeowners turn it down a bit when they were going to be at work. (I know, it’s passe now, but it was cutting edge at the time.) The device was still a prototype, and we were testing it out on a small number of consumer homes. I oversaw the installations. Funny thing happened. It was the middle of July, and some of them stopped working. Not only that, but the HVACs they were attached to stopped working as well. Houses got really hot, and people were complaining. I had to fix those problems.

I looked into the device failures and discovered that we were updating software in the devices without running thorough tests. That means we didn’t really know if the software was working correctly before we uploaded it to the devices. I felt funny doing this, but I told my boss that adequate testing is a very basic thing that needed to be done before uploading new versions of the software.

The reason he hadn’t done this very basic thing was because he had great faith in his primary developer. He couldn’t believe his coding might not work properly. In my boss’ mind, all new software by his lead developer would work. He could only imagine that it would have to work.

Why do we do it? As I mentioned before, it was because we “imagined” it to be so. We could see it in our minds, so we thought we could do it.

And that’s the primary reason our culture is so messed up right now. Half of the country has put forward radical ideas – ideas that don’t work – because they believe those ideas to be true. They can see them working in their minds, but they don’t work in real life. Here are the main bad, unproven ideas circulating in our society:

• Divorce has no ill effects on spouses and children
• Sex without responsibility is liberating.
• Men can become women and women can become men
• Unborn babies are not human.
• Defunding the police will make everyone safer.
• The COVID-19 shots are vaccines.
• Condemning all people of a specific racial group is not racist.
• Canceling people stops disinformation.

But all of these wonderful imaginings actually have their encounter with gravity. There’s no escaping it. Although we can come up with these and other visionary ideas in our heads, once we try to live them out, we get hit – and hit hard – by reality. The ground of real world consequences will come up quickly to meet us once we actually put those ideas into action and jump off the roof with our umbrella.

Instead of jumping off the roof, we should instead listen to the maturity of those who have gone before us. Listening to those who have learned from their foolishness is called wisdom. It seems to be in short supply in certain quarters these days. Those individuals also saw themselves as visionaries in the past and learned:

• Divorce hurts children because they are at a loss without both parents. And women become financially worse off after divorcing.
• Even casual sex causes emotional bonds that can cause psychological stress. Sexually transmitted diseases can result from non-monogamy. Children get created and discarded.
• Those who attempt to change their sex suffer real physical, mental, and emotional pain once they realize the changes don’t really work. The depression suffered by transgenders only worsens once the transition occurs.
• Ignoring the humanity of the weakest among us (the unborn) allows for murder and sears our hearts from being compassionate.
• Although we once thought COVID-19 shots prevented us from getting the virus, we now know it may only temporarily prevent us from having serious bouts with the disease. Counting on the shots to protect us make us vulnerable.
• Treating everyone in a group as evil leads to prejudice, discrimination, scapegoating, mass-imprisonment, and genocide.
• What I think is disinformation today will become someone else’s disinformation tomorrow. Those who cancel others today will be canceled by others tomorrow.

Most of these results are fairly obvious to us, but many have so conditioned their minds that they convince themselves that new ideas have no consequences.

The next time someone comes up with the next “great idea” that raises some concern in your mind, consider whether that idea is likely to have a real world consequence not considered by the “elites” who came up with those that idea. If you do, you just may save yourself from a trip to the emergency room.

Thinking at the Speed of Light

Several times over the past, I have gone to see a football game at my alma mater, and I saw something really interesting. It was being broadcast on television, and whenever it was time for a commercial, there was a guy wearing a red hat who stepped onto the field, stopped the game, and watched his timer until it was time for the commercial break to be over. Then, he would signal that the game could start up again.

It turns out these guys are called Television Timeout Coordinators. They make an average of $43k/year. Every time I see one of these guys doing their job, I ask myself the same thing:

How do I get that job?

I can only imagine doing that job. All I have to do is stand on the sideline, watch a football game up close, and when it’s time for a commercial, I step onto the field and stop everything. How hard can that be? It looks like the hardest part of the job is just timing the commercial. Plus, all attention is on me. Two high-powered football teams and their staff can do nothing else until I declare the commercial is over. And out of a 3 hour football game, I might have to time 20 commercials. Most of the time, I’m just watching the game. On the outside, at least, it looks like an easy job. Especially for the pay.

But there’s another job I envy. Imagine having a job where, at the flip of a switch, you could cause millions of people to accept something they didn’t believe before. This seems to happen all the time in our current culture. Consider these examples:

“Safe, Legal, and Rare” to “Abortion is Good”

For decades, Americans who call themselves “pro-choice” have declared that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” “No one really likes abortion”, they say. It’s just something that is needed for women in certain circumstances who have no other options. And abortion shouldn’t occur when the unborn is fully developed. That would be abhorrent.

And then, one day, the switch is flipped. Pro-abortion states begin passing bills that say doctors cannot do anything to save a baby born from a botched abortion. People supportive of abortion rights just yawned. There was no skepticism about whether it was good or not. None of them said that although they supported abortion, they could not condone killing a live baby. Many began declaring that abortion is “good”. Not only good, but great. Celebrities who had abortions declared how glad they are that they had an abortion. It was wonderful!

Abortion went from something that no one really wants and should only be done in certain circumstances to something that is shouted from the rooftops.

Free Speech to Hate Speech

In the mid-20^th century, there were groups such as the ACLU who fought for free speech for everyone, regardless of whether they were on the right or left. This happened for people who burned flags, for Klansmen, and for anti-war protesters. We were often told, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” Free speech was considered the most foundational American right.

Move forward to a year ago. Suddenly, the switch was flipped, and free speech isn’t so free any more. Now, you can say whatever you want to say, but it can’t be “hate speech”, an amorphous term that means whatever the beholder considers “hate”. Now, if you want to criticize gay marriage, the Black Lives Matter organization, or open borders, it is considered hate speech, so you will be pilloried – either figuratively or physically – by those around you. And it’s often hard to determine if you are going to say something hateful, so you’d better be very careful what you say.

Free speech went from speech that could be uttered anywhere by anyone to speech that one can only say with fear and trepidation.

2 Genders to TBD Genders

For thousands of years, civilizations have recognized only 2 genders: male and female. Even when homosexuality began to be accepted in our society, there was still only make and female. And then the switch was flipped and you can be any one of several dozen genders.

Nonviolent Protests to Violent Riots

In the 1960’s, blacks across the country were holding nonviolent protests in a quest for civil rights. Lead by Dr. Martin Luther Jr., protesters marched through areas previously forbidden to them, sat in seats they weren’t allowed to sit in, and declared that they should be treated equally to American whites. But it was all intended to be peaceful and nonviolent – even if those who opposed them used violence themselves.

Decades later, the switch is suddenly flipped. Blacks raised their voices in nationwide protests after the deaths of black men seemingly at the hands of police (often white). These protests, which started peacefully, grew into violent riots, causing destruction to buildings, fires, lootings, and even deaths to individuals who tried to oppose them. Not all protesters were part of the riots, but everywhere, celebrities, politicians, and media declare that the violence was justified. It doesn’t even matter that some of the violence hurt other blacks. It should have happened and should continue.

Black protests went from nonviolent protests, where the protesters were willing to endure abuse, to riots where the rioters could do practically anything they wanted to do.

Concerning the switch flipping, this was actually a two-fer. This took place during a time when the entire culture was concerned about any large gathering that might cause more outbreaks of COVID-19. Suddenly, when the riots started, celebrities, politicians, and the media said the value of the rioting was more than the risk of people getting COVID-19. People who had been so very, very concerned about the spread of the virus earlier now had no outbreak concerns about the riots.

Of course, there is no Switch Flipper. That job doesn’t exist. But it is phenomenal just how quickly minds and opinions within our culture have changed about these and other issues. Many of these widespread cultural opinions have settled into our culture before the few skeptics have had time to air their differences.

The big danger to cultural switch flipping is that it allows the majority of us to be easily controlled by elite opinion makers. We seem to be very willing to give a lot of power to the opinion makers, putting us in danger of becoming “mind-numbed robots.”

So why is this occurring?

One difference, in my opinion, is that this is happening mostly on the left, not on the right. There may be some difference between the mindsets of the left and right that cause this. One possibility is that the left is a more enthusiastic user of social media than the right. Or, as I suspect, it’s because the left mindset is one that is willing to accept new realities, even newly envisioned realities, much quicker than the mindset of the right. Bear in mind that this is not intended as any kind of political hit piece, just an observation.

Skepticism and questioning, however, does take time. It takes thought, considering your core beliefs, and raising concerns. These take an investment of time. I suspect that our media-saturated culture does not provide us with much space in which to think. Many of the spaces in our schedule when we used to be able to simply think are now occupied with checking our smart phone, listening to GSTV when we are pumping gas, listening to music while walking or jogging, etc. Who has time to think for themselves?

In addition, it is difficult to have a nuanced view in our culture. One example is J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. She appears to be very supportive of LGBT inclusion, yet she believes that minors should not be allowed to use puberty-blockers or surgery to bring about gender transition. Rowling says that is abusive to children and that they should make those decisions when they are adults. This puts her straddling the fence between left and right. Rowling has the cultural presence to be able to make that defense, but it is still difficult for her. Leftists reject Rowling, saying she is really anti-inclusion. At the same time, she’s not really reflective of beliefs on the right because she support many LGBT beliefs. But most of us minor-leaguers don’t have the time or social media capital to be able to defend such nuanced positions on issues. We tend to be branded as either a good guy or a bad, no in-between.

But there is also a nefarious influence at work, preventing us from shaping our own opinions: Cancel Culture. Fear prevents many of us from being skeptical and raising issues. If we are not all-accepting of the latest cultural opinion, we know we will run the risk of being branded a “hater”, a “racist”, or brainwashed. And once you are branded as one of the enemy, you are fair game for being doxed, outed, and canceled by your friends, your school, your job, and others. It requires a backbone in order to stand up to the crowd, a trait that seems to be rare these days.

For these reasons, I believe we will continue to see more switches flipped in the coming years. “Canceling” still holds sway in many significant groups and spheres. It will take some time for many of us to get he courage to question and be skeptical. Regardless of whether they are right or left, I pray that more and more of us will use our reason to question the knee-jerk opinions of the elite.

Opposites Day in Wokeville

When my kids were very young, they sometimes would proclaim that “Today is Opposites Day.” That declaration meant that everything you said was actually the opposite of what you meant. For instance:

If you said	You really meant
“I’m not hungry.”	“I’m hungry.”
“You are really smart.”	“You have the intelligence of  a dead mosquito.”
“Yes, Mom. I’ll clean that up right away.”	“I plan on spending the entire day ignoring what you asked me to clean up.””

This was all a lot of fun. The kids would spend the first few hours of the day saying things with a smile, and we all realized they meant just the opposite. They giggled and giggled as they said things that sounded good, but we realized they were saying things that were bad.

Opposites Day could also include eating dessert first, putting your clothes on backwards, and walking backwards.

It worked for a while, but it always fell apart. The kids couldn’t continue to speak opposite language because it often got in the way when they really needed to communicate something. For example, it was fun to say, “I’m not hungry” when they got up in the morning, knowing that they meant that they were hungry, but later in the day, if they were really, really hungry, they would just say, “Mom, I’m hungry now! Can I have something to eat?” That’s when we knew Opposites Day was over.

Plus, no one can ever truly do and say things in an opposite way. It is impossible to sustain. It’s not how we’re built.

Redefining words and phrases is fun in that context. And humor, in the form of puns, often takes words with 2 different meanings and uses them in the wrong context. I sometimes exercise the gift of “speaking in puns.” (Hat tip to those who have read 1 Corinthians.)

But redefining words is something else when it is meant seriously. The novel 1984 had phrases such as “war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”, and “ignorance is strength”. These phrases, repeated throughout their society, were intended to make the people of that time view war, freedom, and ignorance differently.

The practice of redefining words has the aim of deceiving people. Cults and politicians do it all the time. They want you to accept what they are saying, so they use words everyone knows, but they change the meaning of those words. They also deny that they change the meaning of words, so you have to pay close attention to what they say.

If you can change the meaning of an essential word, a word people like, then you can use those feelings to accept your new definition. That is happening throughout our society today, but I’ll only focus on a single redefined word in this article.

And that word is “justice”.

Justice is one of those things that most people see as a universally desirable trait. We want justice because all wrongdoers are punished. It’s like honesty, courage, and compassion. Who would be against that?

“Truth, justice, and the American way” used to be a standard phrase we heard in our culture.

In Middle Eastern religions, justice is something that God will bring about at the end of this earth. Wrongs will be righted. Evildoers will get their punishment. The afflicted of the earth will be avenged.

Specifically, Christianity often mentions the need for justice for the oppressed. Typical of this is the following verse from Isaiah 1:17 from the Bible:

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

As a result, justice has always been a cornerstone of Christianity. Advocating for those who cannot defend themselves has prompted Christians to fight against injustice. And it’s one of the cultural influences that helped Western democracies promote fairness before the law, equality in the court, and protection for the vulnerable.

But a strange thing happened during the past decades. The word “justice” has been hijacked by leftists. Like Opposites Day, “justice” no longer means what it originally meant.

Ask anyone in our society today about justice, and they will usually describe social justice, not justice. It’s as if the word “social” negates the meaning of the word “justice”.

If you are scratching your head about this, then you have already fallen prey to the routine redefinition of the term.

The term “social justice”, according to Wikipedia, means “fair and just relations between the individual and society as measured by the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges.” It’s about equality of outcome. Everyone having all that they need, and more. Someone who starts out with a little ends up in the same place as those who started out with a lot. That means that those with little – little wealth, power, or influence – receive more so they are equal with those with a lot. And the only way to do that is to take from those who have a lot and give it to those who have little.

Notice the difference between “justice” and “social justice”? Justice penalizes someone (a criminal) who has done something wrong (like stealing, defrauding, blackmailing). Social justice penalizes someone (a wealthy person) who has done nothing wrong. Justice attempts to return possessions that previously belonged to individuals who were wronged. Social justice attempts to give possessions to someone who never had them before. Justice rights actual wrongs committed by one person against another. Social justice rights hypothetical wrongs of the past that may not have actually affected

Justice:

• Penalizes someone (a criminal) who has done something wrong (like stealing, defrauding, blackmailing).
• Attempts to restore possessions that were legally owned by the victim
• Rights wrongs actually committed by an individual against another individual
• Uses evidence to prove guilt
• Addresses the guilt or innocence of individuals

In contrast, social justice:

• Penalizes someone (a wealthy person) who has done nothing wrong (through redistributing their wealth)
• Attempts to take possessions legally owned by one person and gives them to another person
• Rights hypothetical wrongs done by a group of people against another people
• Uses broad, generalized accusations to prove guilt
• Addresses the guilt or innocence of groups

So, justice and social justice are not at all the same. Anyone who wants justice might actually find social justice runs counter to it. But the primary reason the term “social justice” was created was to deceive, not to clarify.

Lessons About Modern-Day Racism

“You work for us, and when we tell you to do something, you’d better grin and bear it.”

Imagine if your boss said this to you. How would you feel? Would you:

1. Just grin and bear it.
2. Be irritated, but just go ahead and do the work.
3. Get enraged and call your boss racist.

If you answered “C”, then you win! You are the wokest of the woke. And it’s exactly what transpired between two county government workers in Durham, North Carolina.

I ran across a story the other day where a low-level government worker was accused of being racist. With all of the accusations of overt and covert racism, I thought it might be interesting. And it was, but I had to read way down into the article to discover what really happened. I found it on the final page of the article. The accused racist was named Carter, and the accuser was named Davis. Davis made a formal complaint about Carter, saying that the above statement was racist.

Why did Davis call this a racist statement? I was wondering the same thing. The government agency launched it’s own investigation into the matter. They cleared Carter of any wrongdoing. A separate legal adviser looked into the matter and said it wasn’t racist, either.

So there are a number of things you could start asking yourself if you were to find yourself in a similar situation.

• First, did I use any known racial slurs? Not in this situation.
• Sec second, did I use any phrases that are known to be triggering racial phrases? No again.
• And and finally, was there some racial intent in my heart what I said these things? Hopefully, that’s also a no.

So there’s only one logical conclusion to those answers. You must be a racist.

That’s where the vast majority of us find ourselves. The woke and the perpetually offended call the rest of us racist. We scratch our heads and wonder why?

It’s because we have so many people focused on racism these days that they believe they are finding it everywhere. It’s in how you dress. It’s in your perfect English accent. It’s in your microaggressions, which are so innocuous that no one knows they’re aggressions. And it’s in your words.

If a boss told you that you needed to just hunker down and do your work, you might not be happy about it, but it’s not a terribly uncommon thing for a boss to say. It might not be the most diplomatic thing to say, but it’s not racist.

But we live in a culture where someone, somewhere, acts as judge and determines what is racist. An NFL kneeling during the National Anthem is not racist, but a freed slave kneeling in a statue where Abraham Lincoln is freeing the slave is racist. A white person impersonating a black person to get a job is not racist, but a white person wearing blackface is racist. Here are some other things that have been determined by someone, somewhere to be “racist”:

• Supporting the Constitution
• Complaining about the IRS
• A photo of coal workers after work
• Dr. Seuss books
• Spongebob Square Pants
• Math
• Spelling
• Milk
• Star Wars

You get the picture. Practically anything could be called racist. It’s anyone’s guess what the rules are for determining if something is racist. It appears arbitrary. But the main thing is that the majority of us don’t seem to have been given the right to know if something is racist. We have to be told. Someone else (someone, somewhere) makes a decision to call something racist. We will never know how to judge that. We have to trust others to tell us.

That’s lesson one: We will never know what is racist. Only a privileged few can reveal what is racist.

So what was the reason it was called racist? In his own words, Davis said the statement “harkens back to a time in American history, when people of color were slaves.”

Why is this even a thing, you might ask? Good point. Who cares if you’re called “racist?” 

Apparently a LOT of people care about that. It’s one of the worst things you can call someone in our culture. It’s a brand of shame. And once the charge it made, it can stick to you for a long, long time.

There are lots of bad and crude things you can call someone, things that you wouldn’t say in polite company. You could be assigned the scarlet letter. You could be called ugly. You could be called a capitalist pig.But none of those are as bad as being called “racist”.

Lesson two: One of the worst things you can call someone is “racist”.

So what do you do if someone calls you racist? You do the true and honest thing, right? You do what Carter did. You say, “I’m truly sorry about this.”

Yes, you cave. If you are accused of being racist, you MUST apologize. There’s no way your accuser could be wrong. Objecting to the accusation would only mean that you truly ARE a racist. And you wouldn’t want that. See Lesson 2.

Actually, Carter originally said it was a senseless, baseless accusation. But then a group of organizations ganged up against Carter: a racial equity task force, NAACP, and a few other local committees. Then, there was an accusation that white members of the government were part of a “White Supremacist Culture”.

Lesson 3: If you are called a “racist”, beg for forgiveness or else the hordes will come at you with pitchforks.

This is just one small minor incident. But these kinds of things are occurring everyday across our country.

In Communist Russia, you had to be careful what you said in public. Saying the wrong thing could get you arrested and sent away to a prison camp. The authorities had snitches installed in many places to find anyone making comments the authorities considered subversive. They even designed apartment buildings that would make it easier for residents to spy on other residents.

That was the world of “hard” totalitarianism in which you could lose your life simply for voicing your own opinion, should that opinion run counter to the party line. At best, you might escape with your life, but would end up doing hard labor for many years. Essentially, a huge chunk of your life would be spent in prison just for saying things that many other people didn’t dare to say.

Although hard totalitarianism doesn’t occur in America, we do have a “soft” totalitarianism which also destroys lives. If you say something critical to the Black Lives Matters organization, or the LGBT lifestyle, abortion, or (heaven forbid!) if you say something in favor of Donald Trump, there are many people in our society who want to ruin you. They may blacklist you, dox you, and get your management to fire you. All this is possible because leftists today threaten protests, boycotts, or riots against organizations that don’t do their bidding.

Of course, there ARE racists and racist language in our country today. But there is such an intense search for it these days that many people are seeing racism where there is none.

One of the few things that non-Christians like to remind us about the Bible is that it says we shouldn’t judge. They love to bring that out. We should hold off on judging someone and not make any accusations. If only they would remember those words in these situations. maybe they need to hold off on judgment, show respect to everyone, and ignore things that are really innocuous and trivial, even if they might be irritating.

And our country will only become more and more totalitarian until the brave among us begin to say no. No to the false accusations. No to the false charges of racism. No to those who want to judge everyone.

A Counter-Punch to Mobs?

What would you do if you were cornered by an angry mob? What if they began shouting at you, shaking their fists, and swearing at you? What if they began throwing liquids on you and spitting on you? Or perhaps throwing lit fireworks at you? How would you react if they began hitting and beating you?

This happened on Saturday, November 14, after a huge pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C.  The woke mob that claims to hate fascists while acting exactly like fascists hunted down the pro-Trumpers after the rally, isolated them, and provoked them in any way they could, often physically assaulting them.

Of course, this is what the Antifa and BLM organizations have been doing all along. It’s nothing really new. The irony of their actions are completely lost on them. They even seem enthusiastic about showing their bullying behavior on the Internet.

But my point is not to inflame others. If you haven’t noticed this behavior before, then let me be the first to welcome you out from under your rock.

My point is that none of us can truly be prepared for something like that. Whether you are “woke” or non-woke, you probably don’t know how you would react in such a situation. You might try to fight. You might try to run. You might even try to talk your way out of the situation. However, even if you planned out what you would do, the actual real-life situation would never be as good as the plan you have in your head.

In many of the videos that I saw, I saw people who were similar to me. I saw them fumble, stumble, get struck, and suffer. For all of my friends and family who are vocal supporters of BLM, I often wonder if they would rush to help me if I was the one who was being abused and assaulted. Or would they just watch and tell themselves that I deserve it? I hope to never be in that situation to find out.

But what about the aftermath? I wonder how those victims felt afterward? I can imagine many of them had to deal with a lot of anger and feelings of retribution afterward. I know that I would have a tendency to feel that way. I really hate bullying. Ganging up on someone and subjecting them to abuse gets my hackles up.  It is difficult for me to react to such a situation and not want to get back at them.

In these scenarios, hatred can cause more hatred, resulting in a greater and greater escalation of hatred. Multiply this across many people in many places around our nation, and we could all go to a place where we could never extract ourselves: an ever-running swirl of hatred and violence.

But there is a way out of this. It goes back thousands of years, and it comes from a man named Joseph, found in the book of Genesis.

Joseph was the youngest of several children. He was favored by his father, and Joseph often told fanciful stories about himself, stories that made it look like he would one day rule over all of them. This made his brothers despise him.

One day, when his brothers were working in a distant part of their farm, Joseph visited them. He normally stayed indoors with his parents. His brothers, still fuming, decided that they would kidnap Joseph and sell him to people in a neighboring country. Joseph, in fact, did become a slave, and he suffered during his slavery. However, his fortunes changes one day and he was promoted to one of the highest offices in the country.

Ironically, famine drove Joseph’s brothers to the land where Joseph lived. Joseph arranged for them to get famine relief in the form of food, but he also recognized that these were his brothers. His brothers, however, did not recognize Joseph. Joseph tricked his brothers, telling them that they would get no food until they brought their youngest brother with them. Once they brought their brother, Joseph revealed who he was – the boy they sold into slavery long ago.

Imagine what Joseph’s options were. He could have them thrown into prison. He could have had them killed. He could have sent them away to starve. But he forgave them and accepted them as the brothers who never treated him like a brother.

Slavery is a big issue in American culture these days. The Black community believes it is a primary reason for what they see as prevalent racism in our culture. Which brings us to the reason why the angry mobs attacked Trump supporters in DC. Rightly or wrongly, they feel they can attack Trump supporters because of the past sin of slavery.

Regardless of whether they are right to do so, consider Joseph. He was an actual slave. (Most Blacks in our country have never actually been physically enslaved, although some might claim that the current culture virtually enslaves them to a substandard life.) He chose to ignore the hardships he went through and forgave his brothers. Think about that. This magnanimous act of forgiveness was way before the advent of Jesus and his words about forgiving others so God can forgive you. Joseph chose to move forward rather than keep his mind on past hurts. He would have been justified for doling out retribution, but he chose the path of forgiveness.

So I speak both to those who are fed a steady diet of anger about our culture, those who can’t find anything good about our country and it’s past, and I also speak to those who are enraged at the mobs who are rioting, burning, and assaulting people who have never enslaved anyone. We need to learn forgiveness. We need to ignore whatever evils we have seen or experienced and instead choose to take the brave path of forgiveness. It’s the only way this country will be able to move forward.

Unbelievable!

Have you seen this sign in your neighborhood? A number of them have popped up in my neighborhood over the past several months. And just a few weeks ago, my neighbor put one in their yard.

They may not be showing up in your neck of the woods yet, but they have caught on in my immediate area. The primary thing I have to say about them is:

They irritate me and make me laugh at the same time.

They irritate me for a number of reasons. First, they are preachy. They proclaim to the world the great virtues of the family in that home. These people, out of everyone else around them who doesn’t have this sign in their yard, are the ones who are true believers. They are the ones who are really woke. They are the ones who have such devotion to these ideals that they are willing to display them in their yard.

Imagine if I put up a sign in my yard that talked about my beliefs – beliefs which may be very different from theirs. They would see that sign over and over. Would they feel nonchalant about that and respect my free speech, or would they suddenly say that my sign goes “beyond the bounds?”

Second, they are huge virtue signals.

I do realize there are conservatives who are strong on virtue signaling as well. For instance, a number of second amendment defenders love to proudly display their guns even when it’s not necessary. But it seems to occur much more often with leftists these days. That’s also why many of them show up in various protests – climate change, women’s marches, BLM marches. They have to show everyone that they are for these things, even if they don’t really understand the issues nor can defend them. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it may have something to do with how social media makes many want to jump on the bandwagon about an issue before they have all the facts.

One characteristic of the modern left is that they have a craving need to display their woke virtues.

Third, it is divisive. I actually know these neighbors pretty well. I interact with them all the time. I do things for their little kids and give them toys from time to time. They know I have different thoughts about these matters, but they put the sign out anyway. Do they expect me to be okay with the sign? Do they realize that it is difficult to just act like it’s not there? Instead of engaging me in dialog, which they have never tried to do, they simply put the sign out there.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some old saying, some old proverb, even perhaps a religious commandment that we all needed to follow about being kind to others because we want them to be kind to us?

Wait! Didn’t I see that on the bottom of a sign somewhere?