IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
# 281
June 30, 2020
“History — A Value Assessment”
It’s been a month since I last wrote a column. This one should even things out. Moreover, my upcoming “4th Of July” column is red, white and blue to its core.
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Over the last twenty years I have worn my soapbox thin while warning readers that America’s public education has failed to teach factual history. A quick look at many current textbooks will astound anyone with a decent background in both American History and World History. More opinion than fact, to be sure….
Under the law, ignorance is no excuse. Yet, ignorance is on full display as thugs masquerading as “protestors” roam the streets of cities from coast to coast toppling statues of historical figures and defacing memorials honoring our military.
If one adjective describes America, it is resilient. No matter what has befallen the United States, she bounced back with determination. While determination is key to a recovery from adversity, no amount of determination is worth its salt without the crucial teamwork of love of country and respect for the law.
Sadly, both are glaringly absent from the current mobs. Say what they will about their “purpose,” it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what is at the heart of their actions. They seek to tear down the country from the inside. I’m old enough to remember First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. He banged his shoe on a desk at the United Nations and warned the United States of what his country expected.
Three and a half months before, Nikita Khrushchev said, “We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism until one day they will awaken to find they have communism.”
Variants of this passage also appeared in newspaper opinion columns and letters to the editor. Yes, decades have elapsed since he barked out his venomous prediction. It’s hard for Americans over 60 to imagine how far our elected officials have bought into the morass of the great socialist lie.
To quote an old American saying, “There is no free lunch.”
As often as I cite it, Venezuela comes to mind. Once the most prosperous country in South America, Venezuela’s glory is gone. Her people are destitute. Her duly elected president is out of the country and banned from returning to try to turn his Venezuela around. Former President Nicolas Maduro lost the election to Juan Guaido, but he ignored the results.
“Maduro usurped power; he’s not the duly elected president. Juan Guaido is the person that the Venezuelan people chose. America and now 54 other nations simply have ratified that, have said, ‘Yep, we recognize that’s what Venezuelans want.'” – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (March 19, 2019)
Current conditions in Venezuela should be enough to scare the pants off anyone who works for a living and seeks to government operate with the good of the nation at heart.
And so, history is the ultimate teacher. But it must be taught — warts and all. What too many of us have ignored for so long surfaced in the recent, widespread criminal mischief that laid waste to city after city.
Given today’s climate, isn’t the proof evident? Isn’t our inadequate response to the “dumbing down” of our children crystal clear? Sadly, it is. Our young people have been taught that America is responsible for nearly every ill you can name. How, then, does that mindset arm them to lead their fellows one day?
Grade school classrooms that once boasted portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln sport posters on diversity. When we were in school, history came alive for us as we learned about colonists fighting for freedom… the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” and countless other stories to illustrate how hard our forebears worked to secure freedom for every American. Our first songs were the military service hymns and the National Anthem. I doubt if most students could even name the U. S. armed services.
Were there inequities in our history? Absolutely. Were there persons who sought to relegate the former slave to a lowly state in perpetuity? You bet. However, for all the railings and rantings of the “so-called” broadcast and print media these days, one glaring fact is absent. Did our people press for change?
Yes. Beginning with the “Underground Railroad” and continuing into the formation of a new political party to replace The Whigs.
You see, in 1854, long before the Civil War, the Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, on an anti-slavery platform. The 20th century votes to pass landmark legislation guaranteeing civil rights were also Republican votes.
The Democratic Party was the party of the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. One of the longest serving senators was Robert Carlyle Byrd, (D) West Virginia. Byrd served in the United States Congress from 1952 to 2010, making him one of the longest serving U.S. Senators in American history. While in office, he earned the praises of civil rights advocates.
However, prior to his political career, Byrd was a high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan during the early 1940s.
My, my…. How easy it is for the Democrats to ignore these facts! Democrats were responsible for the hated laws that bear a recognizable name. Joe Biden was so bodacious as he accused someone of “not being black” if he considered voting for anyone else than a Democrat.
Yet, due to its historically accurate role in ending slavery and in also introducing Reconstruction Acts and Amendments to the Constitution, the traditional home of the black voter was the Republican Party. Fact, not fiction.
It is of interest that the Democratic Party was the party of mid-1960s Jim Crow, laws enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by blacks during the Reconstruction period in the aftermath of the Civil War. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965 — when Republican votes passed the Civil Rights Act. Facts affirm that Southern Democrats consistently voted against measures to give black Americans rights they were due. It was only with Republican votes that the badly needed legislation passed.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this was the prevailing attitude within the mid-1960s Democratic party in the when welfare legislation passed. President Lyndon Johnson is said to have commented on just that topic.
Heed this text from page 155 of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of LBJ, a remark made to Richard Russell, a fellow Democratic Senator from Georgia:
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”
Yes, nomenclature aside, remarks such as those from Johnson are despicable — “a problem for us” (Democrats)…. Regardless of his personal opinion, Johnson’s responsibilities of elected office should have kept him from saying it aloud. So, the Democratic strategy was to give them “a little something but not enough to make a difference.” How many in our black community are aware of that? It’s certainly been left out of the American lexicon.
I wonder what would happen today if black voters heard the word “uppity” used to describe them for simply wanting better lives for their families.
Who funds the leadership of the black community claiming everything is racist and the fault of whites while they live secure lives in nice homes — not worrying about the rent or next week’s groceries? As quipped in “Jerry McGuire — follow the money!”
Victimization leaders pay to send their children to good schools while they deny their constituents school choice. With no financial backing it is difficult for someone in the black community to step forward to counter their venom. Yet, that is precisely what the black community needs. More than anyone else, they exacerbate a volatile situation on which the media feeds incessantly.
There is hope. God grants us all free choice, as does our U.S. Constitution. Spread the word that free choice is a direct benefit of freedom in America. Nobody sees George Floyd’s death as acceptable, but let the system work. Peaceful protest is wonderful. Americans as a whole are all for it. Yet, it is the groups that hijack the grievances to terrorize our cities and towns that pose the largest danger to our nation.
I have a wonderful sweatshirt with a great image of Frederick Douglass, yet the shirt gets a second glance not because of his picture, but of the huge letters above his image — F D R.
Of course, most people think of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; but below the picture is the real description: Frederick Douglass, Republican — true.
Democrats would have you think that they are the ones to protect every black American. Yet, for decades (in some cases 7 decades) Democratic leadership in cities and states across the country has failed to improve the lives of the black community. Oh, every four years Democrats show up and to call Republican names and to claim that the black community can only depend on The Democrats.
This is the saddest thing for everyone. Not just the people of color. Why? Lies never produce anything positive. Consistently insisting that a group of people are victims yet failing to really do anything for them worked until 2016. Then things changed. Employment numbers over the last three and a half years proved the dependency mantra wrong. Now the nation faces another four months of spiel and disinformation that threatens the freedoms we cherish.
I pose this question: What if all the protestors that break windows, toss bottles at police, torch buildings, destroy businesses, block off streets, declare they are the law, and wreak havoc on precious monuments had to fight for the freedom of expression they exercise? It’s much easier to usurp other’s freedom and race into cities hell bent on destruction. Intimidation is their weapon.
They fight for a tired ideology that failed every time it was tried. Liberal professors herald socialism as the “be all, end all” for their students. It’s the only “fair way.” Yet, facts prove them completely wrong.
Many my age remember seeing films of Chinese children taught that America was evil and her people should die. Today, Palestinians spew the same hatred against the Israelis. What parallel do we see?
Those seeking to destroy the United States and Israel know they cannot defeat capitalism legitimately. Instead, they vow to destroy it. Capitalism and personal initiative stand as the sole obstacles preventing them from taking away every freedom that makes America the envy of the world. Every freedom you have….
Do not stay silent. Oh, you are probably among what most call the “silent majority,” but you and others like you are under a threat never experienced before to this degree. Urge your state to demand legitimate absentee ballots. A mailed ballot is the biggest threat to our election process. Voter ID protects all voters.
Certain circumstances demand action. This presidential election cycle requires nothing less. Action. Not words. The Democrats banter about all manner of words, but their actions paint a dismal picture for this country.
My readers recognize that I generally end my columns with a familiar suggestion. So, here’s another something for readers to “think ab
Consider these words, important words for each of us.
H History
I Inspires
S Student
T Thought
O Overcoming
R Ridiculous
Y Yammerings (for Socialism)
H Hysteria
E Eradicates
R Reason,
I Instigating
T Treacherous
A Anarchists to
G Goad law
E Enforcement
And so, the soap box top grows ever thinner.