I am very concerned about finding and acting on the Truth, as any reader of my recent posts will attest.

As a student of Russian History who made my first visit to Leningrad in 1969 at the age of 22, I have always been aware of how the Soviet State bent “truth” to suit its needs. From big lies, like portraying their one-party, top-down, controlled elections as “democracy”, to the small lie that prices in their economy had anything to do with real costs or demand—all were fabrications to help keep their elite in power.

Until a few years ago I actually used to say that in our country, whatever problems we may have, we still all value the Truth and use it to settle disputes—once we know what the actual facts are, facts which everyone genuinely seeks, then that Truth will win out and help direct the best courses of action in the future.

But not anymore.

I think we are moving perilously close to the old Soviet and current Chinese models, that “truth” is whatever the government and purveyors of information want it to be.

If we cannot count on the Truth to “set us free”, then lies masquerading as truth will enslave us.

So where does real Truth come from? I believe that all Truth comes from God, based on His Word and on supportable facts which are established by physical evidence, corroborated by honest witnesses, and aligned with actual experience.

If elites can make up one set of “truths” this week, then they can just as easily make up a different set next week—and since we know that power corrupts even the best of us—we can be sure that they will, to their benefit, and to our detriment.

To me, for example, the biggest difference between the American and nearly contemporaneous French Revolutions was that our Founders believed the Truth that our inalienable rights are given by our Creator-God, not by a king or any other person, and therefore should not be taken away by any government—this is the definition of individual liberty based on the sanctity of each person (1). The French—and the Russian, German and Chinese Revolutions that followed—all were based on the lie that some combination of man-made behaviors imposed on society as a whole would bring their nations to a utopia, which, of course, then needed a special group of people to run it. And they all quickly descended into murderous reigns of terror.

That difference, by the way, is today correctly characterized by President Biden as the struggle between Democracy and Authoritarianism, and in this he is exactly right.  But does he not see that many of our government’s policies and our media’s reportings are riddled with lies, not truths, pointing us down the same wrong road?

Following is a list of, at best, half-truths that I believe are incorrect and leading our nation to bad decisions and to a worse, not better, future. I certainly don’t know everything about all of them—I’m very much willing to learn more about the real truth on these subjects, if you can point me in that direction.

1. Systemic Racism and Critical Race Theory define our nation. The American people are not, as a whole, systemically racist, and the country was not founded to promote slavery. This is a subject worth a lot more space, but take just one tiny example of the Truth. As Heather Mac Donald points out in her detailed book, The Diversity Delusion, for at least three decades corporations, universities, colleges, government agencies and schools have done everything they can to hire qualified black candidates, including a conscious lowering of their own placement standards; there are of course many well-qualified black candidates for these positions, but, tragically, there simply are not enough. The reasons are many, including government-induced destruction of the family, union-supported failing schools, single-parent poverty, neighborhood violence, incarceration, government-mandated segregated housing, not wanting to be “too white”, etc. All terrible and tragic. But NOT caused by the corporations, universities and entities trying to help correct these problems by hiring people anyway. Now, when any institution cannot meet the 12% minimum that Progressives have apparently decided it takes to prove that an organization is not racist, then that organization and its leaders and all other emplpyees must be systemically racist, and must confess their sins and change. And since the nation as a whole cannot manufacture enough qualified candidates to make the math work across the country, to Progressives it proves that we are all racists. A sad and tragic lie. But there is a solution! Hire a few more six-figure Diversity Experts, create some more White Confession Classes, and promise to do better in the Annual Report. In other words, spend money to ramp up the elite, well paid Diversity Establishment, but don’t help address the real causes of why there are not enough black candidates for the jobs and positions begging to hire them all over the nation.

2. The Military is a perfect venue for Social Experimentation. The purpose of the military is to protect our nation from enemies who are constantly seeking to gain the advantage over us. That huge task takes a lot of different skills and personalities, from ferocious warriors to logistics experts to out-of-the-box strategists. And it takes a culture that encourages a focus on truth, honesty, and fact-based results. Today, instead, our newly Woke Military is focused on meeting the demands of the Diversity Establishment that has already overrun our schools, universities, and corporations. People with the skills our military desperately needs are being discharged or removed from leadership simply because they dare to question in a civil way some “truth” of the Diversity Establishment, like all female soldiers want to serve in combat, or pregnancy is not a big issue for force readiness. See my post from 2014.

3. Physical males, because they think of themselves as females (certainly their right to do so), should be allowed to compete against physical females in sporting events. One person’s feelings are more important than millennia of objective facts.

4. The situation at our Southern Border is a manageable problem, not a crisis requiring drastic action. As a result, does anyone have any idea who or what is actually entering our country, every day and every night?  Weapons, drugs, terrorists, not to mention children and families who need immediate care—creating more future Dreamers!  And if this is how our new Vice-President solves problems, I can’t wait for her to be President.

5. The rampage at the Capitol on January 6^th was fundamentally different from the months of violent rampage and destruction in Seattle, Portland and other targeted American cities. Participants in the former should be prosecuted to the fullest possible extent. Participants in the latter should be congratulated for their dedication to social justice and invited to return another night for more peaceful protests.

6. The size of our exploding National Debt doesn’t matter. But it will soon be $30 Trillion. The half of us who actually pay income taxes in the U.S. will have to fund $1.2 trillion in annual interest on the national debt when rates return to their historic norm of about 4%. That’s about $25,000 per year for a family of four, just to pay the interest–no principal reduction, defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, or any other government programs. And if other nations finally question whether we can actually make these payments, interest rates will go up much more, choking off the economy.

7. We need to continue the War on Drugs to reduce gang violence in our nation. Actually, just the opposite. Please see my earlier posts on this disaster. We must stop this destructive policy before the violence it encourages consumes us.

8. Iran will be a peaceful and responsible member of the world order if we just negotiate the proper treaties and integrate them into the right international systems. While that approach worked with Japan, Germany, Korea, Taiwan and others, it clearly has not worked with Communist China. To naively believe that Iran’s leaders will give up their commitment to build a nuclear bomb with which to destroy, or at least to intimidate, Israel and the Free World is absurd—a decision based on lies and contrary to our own experience.

9. The Federal Government is an agent of positive change that should be given more power over our lives. Yes, the central government thankfully stepped in decades ago to forcefully guarantee basic civil rights for all our citizens against the egregious excesses of the segregated, Jim Crow South. But be very careful over what issues you give the government the power to act, because once it brings its overwhelming power to police and to tax to bear, it can also create great harm. The Internment of Japanese-Americans, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Federal Red-Lining to set race-specific housing boundaries, Prohibition, the Draft, The War on Poverty—Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Three-Strike Incarceration Laws, the War on Drugs—these are all central government programs which either now or in the past have caused severe harm both to countless individual citizens and to the fabric of our nation as a whole. The thought that vaccine passports would be a good idea should scare all of us.

10. The new Election Laws in Georgia, Texas, Florida and elsewhere are designed to suppress black voters. All lies, and for an obvious purpose. Meanwhile, have you seen Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, written and produced by Progressives in March, 2020? Was this a set-up for contesting the election if Trump had won? I don’t know. I don’t want Trump to run again, but I would like to know the full, unspun truth about all aspects of the 2020 election. Is that possible?  See my earlier post on the subject.

Back in January of last year, just before Covid hit, I wrote a post about separating Historic Real Issues from the supposed difficulties of Current Fantasies and Irritations. If you have time, please take a look. Now I’d like to propose, as a counter to the above list of the lies and half-truths that tend to consume all our time and energy, a list of Current Real issues that may actually cause us great harm, now or in the future, if we don’t address them.

1. China invading Taiwan.
2. Russia invading Ukraine or The Baltic States.
3. Killing on average more than two babies every minute, 24/7/365, for 47 years, greatly reducing, in particular, the black community (2). See an earlier post on this terrible issue.
4. Immigration Reform and Border Security. Is there no group in government who can compromise and get this done?
5. Dramatic reduction in government spending across the board, to reduce our debt and the impact of the central authority. Start with 5% per year for the next four years.
6. UnWoke our schools, companies and, particularly, our Military.
7. Shun celebrities, pundits and officials who denigrate women, the family, and fathers. Replace the Diversity Establishment with the Family Establishment to encourage two-parent nuclear families.
8. End the War on Drugs yesterday. See this earlier post for details.
9. Appoint two commissions of former judges, prosecutors, experts and government officials from both parties—people known for integrity and for seeking the truth—to fully investigate and report to the nation on all aspects of the 2020 Election and on the January 6th invasion of The Capitol.

Please, all of us, let’s focus on finding the Truth on all of these important issues, and then act on the real facts supported by evidence, witnesses, and experience.  It may be harder to do, but it will insure our lasting freedom.  If we continue to pass laws and policies based on lies, there will be no way to avoid the disasterous consequences. Just ask the corporate Head of HR who has been fired for being an obvious racist becuase there are not 12% black employees in her company, despite her two decades of trying to find qualified candidates. Clearly, she is the problem, not the government policies which have helped destroy the nuclear family across our nation.  Lies have consequences.

Notes:

1. I deeply appreciate that the Founders fell down in their belief that “all men are created equal” by limiting in practice those to whom “all men” actually applied. From my reading most knew at the time that slavery was a cancer that would have to be excised, probably violently, at a later date. But they had a choice–one nation with slavery, or two divided nations, more easily conquered by European powers.  They chose the former. Despite not explicitly including women, some white males, and all slaves, their statement was still the Truth. I think of it as the lighthouse which the nation used for the next two hundred years as its guiding light in the darkness when considering matters of inclusion. It took great pain and the deaths of over 350,000 of the majority fighting to free the minority, but it finally happened. And nowhere else on Earth has that happened.
2. In addition to the more imporant moral issue with abortion, consider for a moment just one unintended economic consequence: Had we not killed those 60 million babies since 1973, and including all the resulting offspring of those people, our nation would have about one-third more people today of all races and abilities. Workers, teachers, creatives, doctors, fathers, mothers…adding strength to our unique diversity–and people to fill all those millions of jobs now going vacant, helping to fuel a much more robust economy that could more easily handle and pay down our debt.  But they are not with us, and we are forever less well off for their loss.
3. After more than ten years of writing a post a month at the intersection of Faith, Economics and Policy, I may take a sabbatical this summer to recharge, curate new topics, and hopefully come close to finishing my fourth novel. So if you don’t see me for a bit, I expect to be back in September. Of course, I never know when the muse might move. Have a great summer with your family! And ask what you can do for others.