Does “Jesus Gets Us” get Jesus?

They look in the mirror of their souls and see Jesus.  That’s the best explanation of the “Jesus Gets Us” campaign.  This biographical process isn’t a new phenomenon as even a cursory study of “life of Jesus” literature makes clear. 

The most famous review of previous “lives of Jesus” was written by the scholarly humanitarian Albert Schweitzer:  Von Reimarus zu Wrede: eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung, a title often translated as The Quest of the Historical Jesus.  Here’s Schweitzer’s prefatory summary:  “Thus each successive epoch of theology found its own thoughts in Jesus”—a rational Messiah, a romantic Jesus, a social gospel reformer, et cetera.  Ironically, Schweitzer’s own portrait pointed to an inscrutable but spiritually powerful figure focused on the end of times about whom nothing much could be confidently known.

To be fair, most scholarly portraits resulted from attempts to utilize what was considered reliable biblical evidence.  As far as I can tell, the “Jesus Gets Us” folk compose their caricature based on a single act performed by Jesus on his disciples and a 60s Beatles’ song, “All You Need Is Love.”  Missing is any serious consideration of the plethora  of data points that provide a more realistic portrait of the first century Jew hailed as “the Christ” (i.e. the Messiah) by his followers.  Since “Jesus Gets Us” ads evidence no concern for “historical critical” issues and takes the biblical narrative at face value, I shall do the same and see how that narrative comports with their foot-washing Jesus. 

As noted earlier, there is only one gospel account of Jesus washing feet (John 13:1-15), and that was performed on his apostles at the Last Supper.  It’s unclear how “Jesus gets us” folk would incorporate the perfumed anointing of Jesus’ own feet by a woman described as “a sinner” (Luke 7:48ff.) into their ads or, more to the point, the judgmental command to “sin no more” given to another woman caught in adultery whose stoning was nixed by Jesus’ suggestion that the first stone be cast by someone without sin (John 8:11).   

Furthermore, I can’t imagine the “Jesus Gets Us” Messiah issuing this dictum: “I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 6:32).  It’s hard to see that same Jesus washing the feet of a woman emerging from an abortion mill like Planned Parenthood.  Then there’s the warning to, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves,” an admonition that could arguably be applied to obsessive foot-washers.  Indeed, it’s hard to envision those folks taking seriously half or more of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), especially this rather harsh command:  “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine“ (Matthew 7:6).  Finally, the Jesus who overturns the tables of money-changers in the Temple (Mark 11:15-17) is clearly filled with more righteous indignation than the “no questions asked” foot-washer who effectively inverts the biblical Master’s command to “be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). 

This incompatibility exercise could be extended ad nauseam, but it’s sufficient to show that the “Jesus Gets Us” portrait is, to be generous, incomplete.  There are, to be sure, a significant number of sayings and stories that comport well with the foot-washing image:  association with outcasts (e.g. Samaritans, women, and sinners of various stripes), the command to love one’s enemies, and a readiness to forgive transgressions.  But left out of the “Jesus Gets Us” portrait is a clear moral, spiritual voice that is diminished and distorted by a silent Messiah on his knees tacitly overlooking moral outrages that litter twenty first century America and for which, like “family planning,” Leftists have a soft spot in their hearts.

This Jesus who keeps his mouth shut and does what the Jesus of the gospels never does (i.e. wash the feet of prostitutes, political protesters, and haters of scriptural tradition) is precisely the Jesus folks desire who wish to consign religion to an irrelevant closet.  No moral demands, no condemnations, no judgments come from this Jesus-- only an action that implies passive acquiescence.  Apparently, for the “Jesus Gets Us” crew the ambiguous “Judge not” admonition in Matthew 7:1 constitutes the only verbal command they take to heart. The following verses (2-5), however, clearly imply judgments, but judgments based on self-reflection and humility.  An “absolutist” interpretation would mean that nothing will be expected of those who pass no judgments at all (cf. v. 2) and thus would contradict the plethora of judgments made by Jesus himself (cf. Matthew 23) and also expected of his followers (e.g. Mark 6:7-12).       

It is the “no-judgment, foot-washing Jesus” that seems to inhabit the souls of those who, ironically, don’t wish to arouse the kind of hatred from the powers that be that brought about the crucifixion of the real Jesus.  This “no judgment” mentality is also, not coincidentally, the default position within our largely libertine pop culture, a rule that is invariably broken to judge the “judgmental” — i.e. individuals and institutions that give voice to traditional or biblical moral standards. 

The “Jesus Gets Us” Jesus doesn’t “get” the One who spoke a lot more about exalted moral and spiritual truths than he foot-washed.  The construct does provide, however, an acceptable religious image for a permissive, rudderless culture scared to death of being judged by its rotten fruit.  For that culture a non-suffering, non-speaking, non-confrontational foot-washer works quite well.   

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle    

                

RAPING HISTORY AND LITERATURE

Rape involves total disregard for the autonomy and worth of the person assaulted, reducing the victim to the status of a malleable object.  Something of the same attitude obtains when it comes to the deconstruction of history and literature.  Historical facts or the integrity of a piece of literature are approached with only the desire to make them conform to the violator’s druthers--no dialogue allowed.

Whatever one thinks about the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, for most Americans their thoughts are likely shaped more by Oliver Stone’s mendacious film, JFK, than by the most rudimentary facts of the case:  Lee Harvey Oswald worked at the Texas School Book Depository; he bummed a ride to work that day holding a long object wrapped in brown paper that he told the driver contained curtain rods; Oswald had created a shooting blind with book cartons on the sixth floor where he worked; three shell cartridges and the aforementioned brown wrapping paper were found there after the assassination; several parade attendees saw a sixth floor shooter and one, Howard Brennan, provided a detailed description; Oswald was the only person who left the building after the assassination; Oswald then jumped on a bus and traveled to the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, but before ducking into the movie theater where he was apprehended, Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit (a fact confirmed by twelve eyewitnesses and ballistic evidence).

These facts only scratch the surface of what is known about the Fidel Castro loving loser whose “horrifically spelled Historic Diary” provides all one needs to know about this mentally unstable individual who had previously defected to the USSR, attempted suicide, and seven months prior to  Kennedy’s assassination tried to kill a prominent conservative Texas politician, General Edwin Walker.  A concise overview of these and other facts are still obtainable via a 1992 Commentary article by the late American Studies Professor Jacob Cohen, a piece composed in response to Stone’s assassination fantasy.  Gerald Posner’s Case Closed (1993) goes over much the same evidence and also provides information about Jim Garrison that’s 180 degrees opposite the heroic portrait acted by Kevin Costner.   In short, Oliver Stone’s deconstruction of history treats his subject matter like a completely malleable object. 

Literature, of course, is a different animal from history, but if one treats it with respect, a Shakespeare play, for example, will be read and acted giving primary attention to the integrity of the work itself—a task that involves familiarity with the language, customs, and beliefs of the time.  Dr. Gideon Rappaport provides just such an example of this Herculean task in his work, Hamlet, a book that displays both his dramaturgical experience and scholarly expertise vis-à-vis the works of Shakespeare.  (Cf. also his Appreciating Shakespeare, which provides an eye-opening description of Shakespeare’s significant education.)

Like most non-experts, what I knew of the play was pretty much on the same level as what most Americans know about the Kennedy assassination, uninformed observations concerning the Prince’s inability to act. If, however, one pays attention to the words and ideas articulated in the play itself and takes seriously what both Shakespeare and his audience doubtless believed (namely, a Christian view of God and the afterlife) a much different drama emerges.  As Rappaport often mentions, quoting Hamlet’s words in the play, the actors “cannot keep counsel, they’ll tell all.”  And what confronts a modern audience or reader when  the words of Hamlet and Shakespeare are taken seriously isn’t an existentialist or Freudian drama but rather a “Christian tragedy” that exhibits the consequences of exceeding human limits and taking upon oneself decisions properly left to God.  In Hamlet’s case the usurpation of a divine prerogative wasn’t in exacting vengeance on the reigning King for his father’s death, but rather in also seeking to determine his murderous uncle’s eternal destiny.    

This exceeding of proper limits (a theme often repeated in Hamlet via conversations where various golden means are recommended) is certainly a concept worth pondering whatever one’s take on matters theological.  The hubris involved in, for example, deconstructing traditional social and political institutions (as “institutionally racist”) or even manipulating language itself (e.g. a Supreme Court justice unable to define the word “woman”) is likely to lead to consequences more tragic than the death-filled final scene in Hamlet (e.g. the French Revolution, the Soviet Union, Cambodia’s killing fields).

Hamlet’s ill-fated send-Claudius-to-hell scheming is mirrored and magnified in the hubris exhibited by Davos billionaires who view themselves as demigods capable of shaping the economic, political, and even meteorological future of the entire globe.  If they could listen with humility to the lessons of history, literature, or even climatology, their illusions of grandeur would be tempered.  But alas, humility is a virtue that has given way to private jets and caviar-sated spreads at destinations where outsized egos plot the future of proletarians consigned to miniature apartments, no private transportation, and diets consisting of fried insects when solar- or wind-powered electricity happens to be available.   

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle    

The West's Baby Bust: In God We Don't Trust

I’m a big fan of Alex Berenson’s work vis-à-vis Covid, marijuana, and tech-government suppression of free speech (see Berenson v. Biden), but when it comes to his search for answers to America’s “baby bust,” he, like many others, fails to focus on the problem’s root cause.  It’s as if he were dealing with vaccines for the Wuhan virus without considering its gain-of-function lab origin. 

One fact that Berenson overlooks is that U.S. birth rates are following the same negative trend that’s been apparent for decades in Europe.  When Mark Steyn wrote America Alone in 2006, the birth rate among Western women in that continent was a catastrophic 1.4 per woman of childbearing age.  Meanwhile, Muslim immigrants were reproducing at a robust 3.5 rate, a demographic fact that led the now Hillary-dispatched ruler of Libya to predict that Europe would become a Muslim continent in a few decades.  The U.S. birth rate among whites at that time was 1.85 and 2.1 overall.  Today, America’s overall birth rate has declined to 1.78.  Population replacement value is 2.1.  

In short, the “baby bust” is nothing new in the United States and Europe.  So the cause of that phenomenon shouldn’t be reduced to a new-fangled linguistic construct like the “snowplow” parents Berenson ponders — parents who clear obstacles “before their kids even have to face them.”  One could also plausibly blame the Pill, various socio-economic factors, or the climate-change hysteria that’s prompted some women to forswear childbearing altogether.  But beyond these symptoms of cultural distress lies a tectonic shift that’s been taking place for well over a century, a change that Friedrich Nietzsche noticed and happily facilitated in the late 19th century.

Folks without any philosophical knowledge are often aware of Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead.”  What they don’t know is that this observation refers to the West’s cultural belief in God and was linked to his assertion that the absence of this foundation would result in a era of nihilism that could be overcome only by extraordinary persons (Übermenschen) strong enough to accept the meaninglessness of life and to create their own values essentially ex nihilo.  The human debris produced by rulers who fancied themselves architects of such “transformational” projects littered the 20th century: Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, to say nothing of the now-forgotten Progressive eugenicists.   

In this century, various efforts to “save the planet” via climate activism or zero population growth have filled the Clintons’ “politics of meaning” vacuum, though for most folks without the means or desire to dominate mankind or reshape society, simple hedonism has been enough to occupy their time until old age and unsuccessful sport teams show that sex and emotional transference are no longer able to keep ennui at bay.  What isn’t a priority for these secular moderns is having children to carry on some transcendent purpose.  In 2018, The Guardian noted that a majority of 16- to 29-year-olds in twelve European countries did not follow any religion — 91% in the Czech Republic.  Put succinctly, modern secularism, especially a secularism that eschews any deeply felt patriotism, has little use for children — certainly more children than the one (legitimate) clone produced by the Clintons.  A large number of Americans are also doubtless reflected in Kat Timpf’s childless, self-absorbed, attention-seeking persona — a media “personality” whose contempt for her parents’ religion is obvious.

Given the belief that “All We Are Is Dust in the Wind,” it’s no wonder abortion has become a sacrament and political trump card for the Democrat party.  When children become items placed on a monetary or hedonistic cost-benefit scale within a largely materialistic framework, the “rational” argument for even a single time-consuming, diaper-soiling critter is hard to make.  Only the vestiges of maternal and paternal instincts remain, and these have been disparaged for decades by activists who see a fetus (not a baby) as an invasive mass akin to a tumor.  Moreover, if allowed to escape the womb, this foreign object will detract from a mother’s ability to achieve income equality with non-burdened competitors within her professional cohort.

It’s been said that when persons no longer believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they’ll believe in anything.  With respect to our “baby bust” question, the saying suggests that the many secondary causes of the West’s birth dearth are vacuum-filling offshoots of the one large thing that’s been overlooked.  Nietzsche’s solution to the “death of God” nihilism he predicted has proven more than disastrous, and surrogate faiths like environmentalism generally exhibit a negative view of the human species.  Consequently, a reversal of the West’s baby-draining nihilism seems inextricably linked to the reassertion of a transcendent purpose that rejects both a grab-the-gusto materialism as well as spiritually vacuous surrogates whose “gods” are generally reducible to a lust for power. 

Put otherwise, the reproductive decline in the U.S. isn’t likely to change until most of its citizens take seriously the motto on our coins: “In God We Trust.”    

GUTFELD! OR GUTTER-FILLED!

Note: This essay is based on Gutfeld's late-night (11 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Pacific) program. The first program tonight (July 17) an hour earlier had some bleeped out foul language and a number of not so obscure references to Gutfeld's supposed sexual depravity ("blowing" Bubbles or Buble") but certainly not as many as the "late-night" program. Still, the "libertarian" unconcern about "illegal" cocaine was made clear and the same spiritually and morally vacuous Gutfeld was on display during a show that clearly lost its comic edge after the first half hour.

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Can we speak honestly about the moral black hole known as Greg Gutfeld—an abysmal vortex that draws everyone around him into a perverse world of cultural depravity. Yes, he’s more politically astute than media’s leftist Cretins, but if politics are “downstream of culture,” what kind of political environment is being created in the witches brew of Gutfeld’s pre-pubescent potty humor? It’s certainly not a culture that exhibits any attachment to, much less reverence toward, the great achievements of Western literature, art, civic life, and morality.

Seldom does Gutfeld manage to complete a late-night monologue that omits his obsession with scatology, and never does he focus sustained attention on the essential roles that intact families and religious faith play in creating a virtuous culture. Assuming his humor bears some relationship to the truth, Gutfeld also exhibits little affection for children and offers scant appreciation for male-female households whose primary focus is raising their offspring to be moral adults. Instead, when proffering remedies for our political (not cultural) rot, his default position echoes the leftist cliché about education. Yes, he adds an important school choice proviso but is totally blind to the fact that schooling alone, even if academically sound, will have little impact on cultural degradation absent a widespread moral awakening—a revolution that spawns massive institutional changes and millions more intact families. If Gutfeld’s show ever emphasizes the role played by overwhelmingly religious families in shaping children’s lives, it’s up to conservative guests like Mercedes Schlapp who, like other true conservatives, must feel the need to take a long shower after being dunked in Gutfeld’s verbal cesspool.

Ironically, Gutfeld’s expletive-filled program airs at 8 p.m. on the West Coast, the former “family hour.” [Now airing at 7 p.m. on the West Coast.] That irony becomes thicker when Gutfeld passionately and regularly advocates for the legalization of drugs—a position that coincides with his comic persona as an aficionado of most forms of chemical intoxication and sexual deviancy. Unfortunately such references may no longer be over the heads of South Park tweeners who tune in looking for some early-evening SNL humor. Given his attachment to music emitted by bands with nihilist leanings (as well as that compulsive snicker) it’s not a stretch to think Gutfeld assuages his psychological demons by resorting to other than over-the-counter remedies.

On this issue Gutfeld has a reliable echo in the person of Kat Timpf, a self-proclaimed libertarian whose on-air superficiality doubtless has Ayn Rand spinning in her grave. Kat’s a “no rules” gal whose “live and let die” philosophy opposes laws both against and for sexualizing young kids in school. In real life, of course, that means allowing radicals who set the agenda for public education to continue pushing “instruction” on six-year-olds that would have been deemed child abuse twenty years ago. Timpf is even unwilling to oppose drag queen shows for young kids. Instead, she comments with great passion about her friendships with practitioners of that “profession.” The same inane preference for dogma over reality applies whenever Timpf opines about illegal immigration. The “real” problem, she asserts, is the welfare system, not immigration—as if there were some possibility that the former will magically disappear before the country’s schools, hospitals, and social services are overwhelmed with a hundred million foreigners possessing little education or proficiency in English as well as a clear preference for the political party that’s eager to encourage illegal border crossings and to provide “migrants” whatever “entitlements” are needed to keep that party in power.

If those considerations aren’t sufficiently damning, consider Timpf’s self-congratulatory insouciance over “bump and grind” high school entertainments. After all, she observes, kids nowadays already have access that activity and worse—just as she herself did at high school. Never crossing Timpf’s mind is the thought that using her own experience as a normative rule will have the disastrous effect of producing a significant number of self-absorbed, morally clueless adults who are unable to envision or cherish a society in which individuals care deeply about their neighbors and exhibit gratitude for the sacrifices and accomplishments of folks who came before them. Anyone who thinks those words are unduly harsh should ponder Timpf’s comment that she would only want to have a child if it were ugly, since it would then not detract attention from herself.  It’s difficult to imagine a more revolting expression of narcissism.     

I also find it hard to understand how Timpf became a writer or blogger for National Review, but it’s clear she has no affection for religion and only offers back of the hand “raised Catholic” slights that would have made William F. Buckley bolt up straight in his chair. It’s revealing that Timpf once complained bitterly about how cold she was in the studio while wearing, as is her wont, attire suitable for a Caribbean beach. On another occasion Timpf scoffed at the name Rand Paul (as if he were a Libertarian) and affirmed her political allegiance to the Senator’s eccentric dad, former Congressman Ron Paul. To sum up, Timpf has to be squeezed to say anything remotely akin to a moral imperative but is quick to denounce, with passion, “losers” who object to bikini-clad baristas or guests who don’t share her affection for Beatles music. Her fantasy society consists of human monads free to engage in depravities that never impact anyone else—a society devoid of ruthless folks bent on wielding absolute power for whom an assemblage of feckless party-goers who only wish to be left alone pose no political obstacle whatsoever.  

It isn’t particularly surprising that late 20^th century America has produced individuals of the Gutfeld-Timpf stripe, personalities who put on display for an audience’s amusement lives enmeshed in emotional turbulence, stimulants, and various degrees of intellectual virtuosity that appear devoid of serious attachment to the West’s literary and moral traditions—persons who also have little contact with folks in “fly-over” country who love God, family, football, and the flag. It is, however, depressing that FOX seems willing to subject its guests and audience to Gutfeld’s morally debilitating influence—a pox that even infects more serious news programs like The Five.  

Sam Donaldson once defended sensationalized news coverage with the rationalization that apart from its ambulance-chasing exaggerations and frivolities no one would watch. It always occurred to me that news hidden beneath so much toxic “frosting” was hardly worth watching. The same analysis applies to the noxious effluvia that accompany the occasional political insights on Gutfeld’s show. Bottom line:  if politics is “downstream” from the culture exhibited on that program, those politics won’t be compatible with a Constitutional system that, as John Adams observed, “was made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle    

FOX NEWS POST-TUCKER

So FOX News has decided to replace Tucker Carlson with Bill O’Reilly’s one-time man-on-the-street interviewer, Jesse Watters--someone whose gravitas rating hovers in the same abysmal neighborhood as the network’s late-night darling, Greg Gutfeld.

What attracted folks like me to Tucker’s program was his unpredictability, his willingness to let guests talk, his repeated calls to spend time with family and loved ones, and his apparent devotion to a moral vision rooted in religious tradition---all of which informed his tagline opposition to “lying, pomposity, smugness, and group think.”  The “group think” moniker wasn’t limited to the multitude of Woke idiocies but also extended to third-rail GOP topics, most conspicuously to opinions about the war in Ukraine.  Republicans like Lindsay Graham who are welcomed on Hannity’s program frequently found themselves targets of Carlson’s anti-neocon, open border criticism. 

A Mediaite analysis of primetime ratings showed FOX News lost a million viewers after Tucker’s firing, viewership going from an average of 2.6 million in the four weeks prior to Carlson’s departure to a 1.6 million average in the four subsequent weeks.  The hemorrhage in Tucker’s 8 p.m. Eastern time slot was even more dramatic, falling from 3.27 million to 1.49 million viewers—an outflow that continues to this day.

I doubt the network’s brass expect to recover Tucker’s audience with Watters at the helm, a broadcaster whose comic persona and intellectual shallowness (He wasn’t sure Hawaii was the 50^th state.) detract significantly from the impact of his largely accurate but analogy-saturated critiques of leftist policies.  Indeed, one might argue that the Paul Ryan contingent on the network’s board have a death wish for FOX News as a Trump-friendly conservative voice.  What else can explain Greg Gutfeld’s ubiquitous presence as a regular host on The Five plus his own late-night show (soon to be at 10 p.m. Eastern and 7 p.m. on the West Coast). Gutfeld and his assortment of handpicked outcasts do provide unique perspectives, but perspectives largely communicated through the host’s obsession with foul language, sexual deviancy, and scatology--all conjoined with an insult-spewing persona that makes Don Rickles look like Pat Boone.   

Granted, Gutfeld excels at monologues that skewer Woke idiocies, but unlike Tucker, one senses a yawning spiritual void at the heart of his tirades, a void not filled by the intoxicants he touts with conspicuous fervor.  In a recent Wall Street Journal piece about the “irreverent” “King of Late Night” Gutfeld mused about taking over Carlson’s prime time slot.  Apparently replacing Tucker with a crude libertine who displays no discernible connection to faith, family, or activities cherished by ordinary Americans proved a bridge too far for network suits in prime time--but not at 10 p.m. (or 7 in the West).

Certainly there’s no way Gutfeld’s most regular panel member, Kat Timpf, could have taken Tucker’s place, though for some reason FOX has allowed this intellectually vapid, morally-challenged libertarian increasing time as a commentator whose appearances culminated in a panel chair on Bret Baier’s program.  Two on-point examples: Timpf ignores human, legal, financial, and social service disasters caused by an open border and instead regurgitates the unrealistic libertarian dogma that an open border would be fine were no welfare benefits available.  Similarly, she decries Governor DeSantis’s efforts to protect young school children from wildly inappropriate books with explicit sexual messages because such governmental action amounts to, in her mind, right-wing censorship.  Of course Timpf ignores the fact that absent such intervention one leaves in place governing school boards and curricula that facilitate the corruption of minors.  The months-long promotion of Timpf’s gossipy, self-referential book (You Can’t Joke About That) paired with the network’s limiting promotional appearances for Judge Jeanine Pirro’s substantive volume (Crimes Against America: The Left’s Takedown of Our Republic) provides more evidence that folks at FOX are working to eviscerate a once-conservative news outlet.

The assortment of temporary hosts that filled Tucker’s time slot over the last few weeks were generally competent but only Will Cain provided the kind of perspective and passionate delivery that rightly makes leftist heads explode, and only Joey Jones communicated the heartfelt compassion that Carlson also exuded.  If one could graft those two hosts together FOX might have something that comes close to the Carlson standard, but then the globalist suits at the network would have to fire that broadcasting centaur as an unacceptable threat to the D.C. Swamp.

 Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle  

Tolerance versus "Acceptance" -- Explaining the Decline in Support for Tolerance as a Value

 Recently, a Wall Street Journal poll confirmed what most sentient Americans already knew — that patriotism, religion, and even having a family are now much less valued than even in the recent past.  Patriotism was "very important to only 38% of today's respondents compared to 70% in 1998.  Religion was down to 39% from 62%, and the importance of raising children cratered from 59% to a demographically dangerous 30%.  One statistic, however, likely caught most folks by surprise — the significant slide in the number of Americans who thought tolerance was "very important," which slipped from 80 to 58%.

The obvious cultural attacks on patriotism, religion, and "the nuclear family" can take the lion's share of "credit" for dismal numbers in those categories, but what's the explanation for the pronounced decline in support for tolerance, a once highly touted "liberal" virtue that scored higher than any other category in 1998?  I think I know the answer.

Around the turn of the century, I was in a prep school teachers' meeting where a young economics teacher observed that "tolerance is such a negative word."  He suggested as a substitute the warm and fuzzy term "acceptance."  As usual, the logical consequences of this linguistic swap were never discussed.  After all, one can't "accept" ideas and actions that are fundamentally incompatible.  One can "tolerate" the beliefs of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and atheists, but one can't logically "accept" all four.  What my touchy-feely colleague really wanted, without saying or perhaps even knowing it, was for everyone to "accept" his largely secular, politically correct beliefs, which included the contemporary gay agenda.  

What then becomes of beliefs and actions that he and his like-minded colleagues reject?  Are they to be "tolerated"?  Apparently not.  By putting "acceptance" in the place of tolerance, beliefs and practices incompatible with "accepted" beliefs are set in a "not to be tolerated" category.  For the past several decades, one need only peruse Hollywood entertainment to see this formula working in practice as ridicule is heaped on patriots (often caricatured as idiots or neo-fascists), religious believers (parodied as rural morons or violent anti-abortion activists), and traditional families (where cringe-worthy Married with Children family life images compete with childless, carefree Seinfeld characters and the heroic detective Olivia Benson on Law and Order: SVU).  More recently, this implicit fictional deprecation has become explicit in real life, as "un-woke" cultural opponents are blithely labeled fascists, racists, white supremacists, homo- and trans-phobes, or, in the case of African-American conservatives like Larry Elder, "the black face of white supremacy."    

Put succinctly, the crowd that only a few decades ago passionately touted the virtue of tolerance now demands acceptance of their du jour victim groups and beliefs — ideas like the following: men can get pregnant and menstruate; separate-sex bathrooms are "heteronormative"; America is institutionally racist; children are mature enough to change their sex, and dissenting parents should be circumvented or even (currently under consideration in California) deprived of their parental rights.  

It turns out that "tolerance" was only a stopgap virtue until such time as enough power was gained to impose their utopian, totalitarian vision upon dissenters — under penalty of law and pain of ostracism.  Nowadays, Berkeley, the so-called home of the "free speech movement," alongside almost all universities, regularly harasses and prevent conservatives or non-conforming independents from speaking.  At Stanford's law school, a DIE associate dean sided with hecklers and lectured a distinguished jurist whose views didn't mirror her intolerant leftist creed.  And swimming champion Riley Gaines was recently assaulted by "trans activists" who weren't about to allow an actual female athlete to say that men who identify as women shouldn't compete in female sports. 

By ditching tolerance for "acceptance," intolerance toward what one does not accept and those who espouse such beliefs becomes acceptable — and widely practiced.  Consequently, bashing and silencing the "enemy" is legitimized, and rational discourse is made unnecessary.  Non-conforming views become "hate speech" and even "violence" that's worthy of violent suppression. 

In short, by substituting "acceptance" for "tolerance," it becomes necessary to be intolerant of persons who don't kowtow to beliefs that must be "accepted."  So much for tolerance. 

GUTFELD! OR GUTTER-FILLED!

Now that the midterms are over, can we speak honestly about the moral black hole named Greg Gutfeld—an abysmal vortex that sucks everyone around him into a perverse world of cultural depravity.  Yes, he’s more politically astute than media’s leftist Cretins, but if politics are “downstream from culture,” what kind of political environment is being created in the witches brew of Gutfeld’s pre-pubescent potty humor?  It’s certainly not a milieu that exhibits any attachment to, much less reverence toward, the great achievements of Western literature, art, civic life, and morality.

Seldom does Gutfeld manage to complete a late-night monologue that omits his obsession with scatology, and never does he focus sustained attention on the essential roles that intact families and religious faith play in creating a virtuous culture.  Assuming his humor bears some relationship to the truth, Gutfeld has no affection for children and offers scant appreciation for male-female households whose primary focus is raising their offspring to be moral adults.  Instead, when proffering remedies for our political (not cultural) rot, his default position echoes the leftist cliché about education.  Yes, he adds an important school choice proviso but is totally blind to the fact that schooling alone, even if academically sound, will have little impact on cultural degradation absent a widespread moral awakening—a revolution that spawns massive institutional changes and millions more intact families. If Gutfeld’s show ever emphasizes the role played by overwhelmingly religious families in shaping children’s lives, it’s up to conservative guests like Mercedes Schlapp who, like other true conservatives, must crave a long shower after being dunked in Gutfeld’s verbal cesspool.

Ironically, Gutfeld’s expletive-filled program airs at 8 p.m. on the West Coast, the former “family hour.”  That irony becomes thicker when Gutfeld passionately and regularly advocates for the legalization of drugs—a position that coincides with his comic persona as an aficionado of most forms of chemical intoxication and sexual deviancy.  Given his attachment to music emitted by bands with nihilist leanings (cf. Power Trip) as well as that compulsive snicker, it’s rather clear that Gutfeld assuages his obvious psychological demons by resorting to other than over-the-counter remedies.

On this issue Gutfeld has a reliable echo in the person of Kat Timpf, a self-proclaimed libertarian whose on-air superficiality doubtless has Ayn Rand spinning in her grave.  Kat’s a “no rules” gal whose “live and let die” philosophy opposes laws both against and for sexualizing young kids in school.  In real life, of course, that means allowing radicals who set the agenda for public education to continue pushing “instruction” on six-year-olds that would have been deemed child abuse twenty years ago. Timpf is even unwilling to oppose drag queen shows for young kids.  Instead, she comments with passion about her friendships with practitioners of that “profession.”  The same inane preference for dogma over reality applies whenever Timpf opines about illegal immigration.  The “real” problem, she asserts, is the welfare system, not immigration—as if there were some possibility that the former will magically disappear before the country’s schools, hospitals, and social services are overwhelmed with a hundred million foreigners possessing little education, no proficiency in English, and a clear preference for the political party that encourages illegal border crossings and provides “migrants” whatever “entitlements” are needed to ensure their ballot-box loyalty.  

If those considerations aren’t sufficiently damning, consider Timpf’s self-congratulatory insouciance over “bump and grind” high school entertainments.  After all, she observes, kids nowadays already have access to that activity and much worse online—just as she herself did in high school.  Never crossing Timpf’s mind is the thought that using her own experience as a normative rule will have the effect of producing multitudes of self-absorbed, morally clueless adults incapable of cherishing a society in which individuals care about their neighbors and exhibit gratitude for the accomplishments of folks who came before them.  Anyone who thinks those words are unduly harsh should ponder Timpf’s comment that she would only want to have a child if it were ugly, since it would then not detract attention from herself.  It’s difficult to imagine a more staggering expression of narcissism.     

I also find it hard to understand how Timpf became a writer or blogger for National Review, but it’s clear she has no affection for religion and only offers back of the hand “raised Catholic” slights that would have made William F. Buckley bolt up straight in his chair.  It’s revealing that Timpf once complained bitterly about how cold she was in the studio while wearing, as is her wont, attire suitable for a Caribbean beach.  On another occasion Timpf scoffed at the name Rand Paul (as if he were a Libertarian) and affirmed her political allegiance to the Senator’s eccentric dad, former Congressman Ron Paul.  To sum up, Timpf has to be squeezed to say anything remotely akin to a moral imperative but is quick to denounce, with passion, “losers” who object to bikini-clad baristas.  Her fantasy society consists of human monads free to engage in depravities that never impact anyone else—a society miraculously devoid of ruthless folks bent on wielding absolute power for whom an assemblage of  party-goers who only wish to be left alone pose no obstacle whatsoever.  

It isn’t particularly surprising that late 20^th century America has produced individuals of the Gutfeld-Timpf stripe, personalities who display for an audience’s amusement lives enmeshed in emotional turbulence, stimulants, and various degrees of intellectual virtuosity devoid of serious attachment to the West’s literary and moral traditions—persons who also have little contact with folks in “fly-over” country who love God, family, football, and the flag.  It is, however, depressing that FOX seems willing to subject its guests and audience to Gutfeld’s morally debilitating influence—a pox that even infects more serious news programs like The Five.  

Sam Donaldson once defended sensationalized news coverage with the rationalization that apart from its ambulance-chasing exaggerations and frivolities no one would watch.  It always occurred to me that news hidden beneath so much toxic “frosting” was hardly worth watching.  The same analysis applies to the noxious effluvia that accompany the occasional political insights on Gutfeld’s show. Bottom line:  if politics is “downstream” from the culture exhibited on that program, those politics won’t be compatible with a Constitutional system that, as John Adams observed, “was made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  

"Pushing the Envelope" Toward What?

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THE MYTH OF VOTER SUPPRESSION (and the reality of voter fraud)

As Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts notes in his poignant introduction, the primary question addressed by Lucas’s book, The Myth of Voter Suppression, is this: “[W]hy does the Democratic Party oppose free, fair, and credible elections?”  The short answer the author provides is that Democrats are much better at cheating and rigging elections than Republicans are.  Tammany Hall, the Chicago Daley machine, and Missouri’s Pendergast organization provide three historical examples.  That’s not to say Republicans never engage in electoral shenanigans, of which cases Lucas provides several examples.  But it is Democrats who consistently oppose measures designed to increase election integrity--measures that even a former Democratic President, Jimmy Carter, advocated in 2005 when serving on a bi-partisan commission co-chaired by former GOP Secretary of State James Baker. 

Two major recommendations of that commission were voter IDs and restrictions on mail-in voting, the latter being a process riddled with invitations to fraud, especially when corrupt voter rolls include dead persons, duplications, and folks who’ve moved elsewhere.  Opportunities for fraud are multiplied when, as in California, ballot harvesting is permitted.  Under this execrable practice (also known as vote trafficking) almost anyone can take custody of and deliver mail-in ballots to a mail box or voting receptacle--a “chain of custody” nightmare that would have made Mayor Daley’s day in 1960.  

By contrast, the top Democrat priority in 2021, HR-1 (mendaciously labeled a “voting rights” bill) would have eliminated most state voter ID laws, expanded ballot harvesting, mandated Election Day voter registration, and required no-excuse absentee voting in all states.  Ironically, in 1977, first-term Delaware Senator Joe Biden opposed Election Day voter registration because it “could lead to a serious increase in voter fraud.”  Fortunately, this “For the People” bill didn’t survive a Senate filibuster but, as Lucas explains, Democrats continue to press for legislation that would essentially federalize elections and thus make their legitimacy as questionable as the Covid-rationalized measures that plagued the 2020 election.

Lucas also notes that the whole idea of “voter suppression” is a myth designed to smear legal measures like voter IDs.  No law actually mentions the term “voter suppression,” and the author cites numerous examples that debunk the Democratic narrative that ID laws diminish election participation.  Indeed, most electoral evidence suggests ID laws actually increase participation and buttress voter confidence in election integrity.  It is, of course, true that laws designed to increase election integrity do “suppress” fraud, which is doubtless a major reason Democrats oppose such laws that are common in Europe.  Case in point: “Today, Democrats routinely call seeking an accurate accounting of eligible voters ‘suppression.’“  Such an accounting would obviously “suppress” the votes of 25,975 dead people who were discovered on Michigan’s voter rolls, stiffs who would obviously prefer to vote by mail.

A trip down memory lane reveals that political bosses have typically made arguments akin to those now proffered by the “voter suppression” crowd.  Tammany Hall opposed cleaning up voting roles in New York City (where more votes were cast than there were available voters).  That same corrupt Big Apple machine also “worked to get prisoners released to ensure they voted and even established a ‘naturalization mill’ to instantly turn immigrants coming off boats into voters.”  Other strong-arm organizations campaigned against the secret ballot, which lessened their power to intimidate voters.  Then there was 1864, when “Democrats tried to use mail-in voting to defeat Republican President Abraham Lincoln.”  Today, the Brennan Center for Justice, along with the queen of the “voter suppression hysteria industrial complex,” Stacey Abrams, serve as the foremost Democratic voices for corrupt elections. 

Lucas provides scores of examples of fraud that actually affected the outcome of elections, thus disproving the Democrat-Media mantra that fraud in American elections, and especially the 2020 election, is almost non-existent.  While Lucas doesn’t assert the 2020 POTUS election was stolen from President Trump, the examples he provides (including an eye-opening analysis by Professor John Lott of mail-in voting in adjacent, typically homogenous precincts) make it clear that that election was far from “the most secure” in American history.  I should note that Lucas’ book is not and does not claim to be a thorough analysis of possible fraud in that election, but in my view the information he does provide indicates that its outcome could easily have been affected by the widespread use of mail-in ballots whose signatures weren’t carefully scrutinized and whose contents were frequently submitted for tabulation via vote harvesting.   

Given this evidence plus a whole chapter listing organizations that provide an endless supply of money and energy for the Democrat HR-1 election fraud agenda, I question the brief assertion made in Lucas’s first chapter that neither voter fraud or voter suppression currently pose an existential threat to the republic.  The $400,000,000 supposedly non-partisan “Zuckerbucks” that went overwhelmingly to Democrat precincts is only one of many 2020 illegalities that makes this “existential” observation less than reassuring.  Indeed, the conclusion I drew from reading Lucas’s scrupulously researched analysis of election laws and practices is that voter fraud (not voter suppression) is an existential threat to the republic right now. 

The original “Godfather” movie is famous for the line, “Leave the gun; take the cannoli.” In this case I’d say, “Read the book but leave out the not-currently-an- existential-threat assessment.”

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle