There’s a lot of competition for the biggest whopper of all, but to comprehend its magnitude, we have to understand answer one key question: Why do lies work?
The answer is simple: Because we want them to. And that’s a trait that cuts across racial and ethnic lines, so all of us have always been equal in natural law. When the Great White Father offered Indian tribes treaties to last as long as the sun rose, they were accepted. When a wandering spouse swears faithfulness to their mate, the listener wants to believe every syllable. When Jews were told they’d be going to resettlement camps by Third Reich thugs, they dutifully packed their belongings. They couldn’t be going anywhere else, could they?
When Black Americans have been told for generations they had only to vote “D” to have a better life, and when all Americans were told—repeatedly—they could keep their doctor and they’d pay less under a new health plan…well, we know how Progressive promises turned out. But believe them, plenty of people did!
One lie that’s been around for a hundred years—under different names—has to do with social justice. Today, every school child hears the indoctrination: they are, indeed, their brothers’ keeper, and what’s more, freedom is unlimited, everyone is entitled to health care as a right, even if they enter the country illegally—welcomed, after all, because weren’t we all immigrants? Progressive social justice warriors insist equal opportunities must mean equal results.
Earlier, they just called it socialism. Germany’s National Socialists (The Nazis) and Communists everywhere promised free health care, and all sorts of power to the workers as party leaders promised a cure for every ill, if only they were in control. Winston Churchill summed up socialism up this way in 1948, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.”
What today’s social justice warriors trumpet is nothing more than recycled trash of a century ago, with manifest failures to its credit when all power is vested in a few to decide what’s best for us all.
Their most recent Progressive battle cry to divide us deserves honorable mention in any contest for the biggest lie. Last season, Progressives heralded Colin Kaepernick’s stance—or lack thereof—as a celebration of his First Amendment rights. Free speech is a right, of course, except when it isn’t. It hasn’t been free on college campuses for some years now, where anyone not deemed “correct” is shouted down, cancelled, or simply, denied the right to speak. It hasn’t been free in the Alt-State where a view contrary to Progressive dogma is suppressed on the air, in the classroom, in the entertainment arena.
The Progressive icon, Justice Holmes, declared nearly a century ago that speech is never absolute (we cannot shout, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, can we?), and in fact, all employers have limits on what employees can do when representing the organization. Would the Catholic Church permit a priest to give a pro-choice sermon from the pulpit? Would a uniformed soldier be permitted to burn the flag? Would a Starbucks barista be permitted a pro-Trump tee behind the counter?
In Sunday’s NFL games, 200 players took a knee or failed to appear on the field (Steelers, Titans, and the Seahawks) during the national anthem. My beloved Steelers stuck their own low note: Not only did team members stay in the locker room—all out of respect for knee-benders?—but Coach Mike Tomlin thought it appropriate to chastise Alejandro Villanueva—a West Point graduate and US Army veteran—for “disrespecting the team” by standing—alone—on the field in respect for the flag. Mr. Villanueva’s right of expression is, apparently, not so free. What bitter irony!
This simple fan’s opinion is this: when a player puts on a Steeler uniform (and is paid huge sums to do so), he represents his team, his city, his fans, the NFL, and what is noble about sports. So he doesn’t get to do whatever he wants in the stadium. When the national anthem is played, it is never about a cause or the unsavory words of one man. It’s much greater than that. They stand, Mr. Tomlin, for the team of Americans everywhere who have worked and died for the players—and all of us—to live our dreams. Protest we may, of course, but on our own time and our own dime.
As nightmarish as this litany of absurdities might be to those who cherish the freedoms bequeathed us by our founders, and bestowed upon us by the Almighty, the biggest lie of all is this: Christians and Jews have been serially sucked into the Progressive vision of social justice—once more—and they foolishly believe a movement insisting on a “living” minimum wage, free entry across our borders, national health care, and abundant welfare for all who seek it, must be what God commands.
The cruel hoax on them will be the same as for the dead hundred millions in Germany, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, and all the places where socialist power pressed the state upon the people, imposed group misery to crush individual freedom, and destroyed the very faithful who labored to give it birth. Today, unfettered free expression—for some—will give way to controlled speech for the masses, but using believers in a Creator to erase our inalienable rights for the good of the many remains the biggest lie of all, worsened by the unalterable fact the Progressive world vision will never be attained.
As Santayana warned us, because so many want to believe the lies they hear, to ignore the past, they are condemning us to repeat it.