Blind Guides Strain at a Gnat, and Swallow a Camel & another Cultural Revolution

“Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”  [Matthew 23: 24] 

The camel? How about modern slave markets in Libya? Or human sex & labor & coyote traffickers worldwide? Or real concentration camps for 1-2 million persecuted Uyghurs in China, Chinese oppression of Tibetans and Hong Kong, after reneging on the handover deal with Britain, or destroying churches? And the Chinese dealing in racist manner with Africans, as Africans attest. Or Iran and other Middle Eastern radicals (Taliban, ISIS, etc.) who throw homosexuals off buildings or topple walls on them, crucify Christians, destroy their churches, suppress women, etc.? Or many political prisoners in Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, etc.? Those are real oppressions that apparently those who think we’re the worst country in the world are either oblivious to, care more for their own financial gain (NBA, Bidens, etc.), or because they need to strain at a gnat for their own political purposes. E.g., calling the U.S. – the most racially diverse and least racist country in the world – systemically racist. With no more evidence than a handful of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of some rogue police. And ignoring the growing percent of interracial marriages (now about 20%), and many other statistics.

In Los Angeles tremendous strides in community policing, racial diversity among the police completely reflective of the population, steady declines in violent encounters (de-escalation training, non-lethal force) and 30-year low in police shootings.  But do rioters in L.A. appreciate that?  No, they want to defund the police.  And further hurt those communities most riddled by crime.  Lunacy.  48 police killed last year doing their duty daily in a dangerous profession, and they are villainized, making it harder and harder to recruit replacements.  “Who you gonna call” when they’re not around, Ghost Busters?  Of course that is precisely the goal of criminals and anarchists like Antifa & BLM.  So keep playing their game, giving them legitimacy, and that’s what we’ll have.

They strain to find fault (some inequality) with the capitalist/free-enterprise system that has raised more people out of poverty and hunger than any in the world, and provided great human and technological advancements, but excuse the human disasters caused by the socialist & communist regimes – many tens of millions of deaths, and far more suffering, religious & political persecution, gulags and concentration camps, etc.

“Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” [Matthew 23:28]

No, these “valiant, brave” “social warriors” virtue signal, pat each other on the back, praise one another, and feel morally superior, and that anything they do in that name is justified.  And they decry those who don’t see things through blinders but see the real and more pervasive problems in the world, and how good we have it here, relatively.  Those who are grateful, not miserable and wanting to inflict further misery on the rest of us.  The U.S. is not perfect (in our founding documents is the continual desire for “a more perfect union”), and there’s always room for improvement, but not worthy of riots and mayhem and pogroms. 

Those who clearly are oblivious to history – or even current world events – are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past – and present.  My generation remembers the Cultural Revolution in China and the terrors, death, suffering, and humiliation inflicted by physical force on the populace.  All in the name of ideological purity, and purging “elites.”  People humiliated in public, forced to make public confessions for trumped-up “crimes” of ideological deviance or critiquing the regime, or being educated (“elite”).  Removed from their homes and professions and forced to do hard labor on farms, etc.  A grad school colleague of mine at University of Colorado and his family had experienced this, losing several years in his education, making him a relatively old grad student. Or the purges and pogroms and gulags of the Soviet Union. 

We are experiencing our own Marxist-style cultural revolution here, or “cancel culture.” Those who express any opinion that doesn’t fully support every aspect of the cause du jour (me too, BLM, socialism, Trump derangement, etc.) are publicly humiliated in the media and social media, harassed, driven from restaurants, forced to resign and apologize, intimidated, threatened, or even physically attacked.  These public mea culpas and confessions, like NFL QB Drew Brees not even under physical threat.  What he originally said was laudable, of what respecting the American flag means to him & his ancestors who fought.  But under pressure of some of his colleagues and some others he suddenly apologized because they took it as an affront to their cause.  This was not under physical threat.  He was not being asked to storm the beaches at Normandy to show his courage.  True, it might have affected his career, but he showed no courage in what he did.  And if that sort of behavior continues, we all fall like a row of dominoes and lemmings just going along, not out of real principle, but succumbing to peer pressure, which continues to grow, just as any bully continues without confrontation.  At least the Chinese did it under physical duress.

And destruction and defacing of historical monuments like Lincoln, Churchill, Columbus, war heroes, etc.  Truly great men who these idiots can’t begin to comprehend or appreciate for what they did, but only in their twisted, revisionist history and narcissistic view of the world can’t tolerate.  And digital “book burning” – censoring and removing books and movies – like the fascists under Hitler and Mussolini.  And in the name of “anti-fascism” – as any reader of Orwell’s “1984” can appreciate.  Trying to erase history – exactly what’s happened in Russia and China.  In Russia the saying goes that “it is only the past that is unknown.”  This remnant of a Chinese cultural virus is worse than the Wuhan strain.  The formerly tolerant and liberal, open-minded party of liberalism has been hijacked by the Left.  And now we are all paying for the wimpiness of true liberalism.