How Many Big Lies Are There

The View from the Middle

The lamestream media would like us all to believe that there is only one “Big Lie” being told in America, but even that “Big Lie” has been ill-defined and unproven.  Donald Trump continues to suggest that the 2020 election was stolen from him and many Americans are concerned that the temporary changes that many states made in their election laws in response to the pandemic led to an unusual amount of voter fraud.  Those are actually two different things.  I personally don’t know of anyone who believes that the 2020 election can be reversed, but the audits in Arizona and Georgia have already uncovered irregularities in their voting results and Pennsylvania will soon launch their audit which will give us some more data on the level of voter fraud in that state.  The Democrats have fought these audits in the courts, but I’m unsure as to why.  These audits will identify improper voting actions and will only improve voter integrity in our country.  I’m not sure what the Democrats are afraid of, but questioning some of last year’s voting practices is not a “Big Lie”.  It is simply an effort to increase voter integrity.

Washington, however, is the home of “Big Lies”.  Let me take this opportunity to remind you of just a few.  The first “Big Lie” is that Republicans are actually behind the “Defund the Police” movement because they didn’t support President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.  There was $350 billion for state and local governments in that bill that Jen Psaki said “could be used” to hire more police.  There was, however, no suggestion and certainly no mandate that this money should be used to support the police.  I believe that this money was really intended to allow liberal run cities to balance their books after years of pathetic and even criminal financial mismanagement.  Even the ultra-liberal Washington Post gave Ms. Psaki and the Biden administration three Pinocchio’s for that accusation.  

Hunter Biden alone is responsible for a mountain of “Big Lies” all by himself.  First, there’s the “Big Lie” that he actually deserved his position on the Burisma board because of his knowledge and expertise in the energy industry and his familiarity with Ukraine.  The next “Big Lie” is that his father, Joe, had no knowledge of Hunter’s business dealings in China or Ukraine.  Sure!  Then there was Hunter’s laptop that wasn’t his laptop and is now being ignored for the media.  And now we are to believe that Hunter’s art, which he blows through a straw (isn’t that how da Vinci did it?), is worth $500,000 per piece.  But, of course we can’t ask who buys his amateurish, splashes of color for those exorbitant prices.  Certainly, those buyers wouldn’t expect access to the current President of the United States, would they?  Hunter is a bundle of “Big Lies” all by himself.

Then there was the insurrection that wasn’t actually an insurrection.  The protesters weren’t even armed despite the fact that President Biden said they would need F-15’s and nuclear bombs to take over our government.  The Senate was back in session within four hours and the only person killed was an unarmed Trump supporter.  Also, a big lie within a big lie was that police officer Brian Sicknick was beat to death with a fire extinguisher by a Trump supporter. It took 30 days to confirm that officer Sicknick actually died the next day of a stroke. By that time most people couldn’t even remember who Brian Sicknick was.  A lie followed by the delay of truth.  Man, these people really know how to deceive.

All of this is just a distraction from what happened last summer as rioters tore through cities across this nation looting, destroying and killing people.  Those riots inflicted over $2 billion of damage in blue cities across the country and at least 25 people were killed including six children.  I don’t know if we should call the coverage of these riots by the lamestream media a “Big Lie” or a “Big Rationalization”, but to compare January 6^th to this is journalistic malfeasance.  

Here’s a quickie.  The lamestream media will try to tell us that there is nothing wrong with Joe Biden’s mental acuity.  The reality is that he is nearly 80 years old (he’s 78) and he is showing all the signs of his age.  He is constantly using note cards to remind him of what to say.  Even during photo-ops with Putin and during press conferences, which also reveals that he knows the questions before they are asked.  He stumbles through speeches even on the teleprompter, he often responds to reporters in inappropriate anger and what is it with this creepy whispering thing.  This is something the media should be investigating, but that is not going to happen unfortunately.

Even “The Big Lie” is a “Big Lie”.  The media continues to allow Democrat politicians to compare the new voting laws in Georgia and Texas to the Jim Crow laws that were abolished almost 60 years ago.  They, the media, allow Democrats to demonize those who support these laws as racists and bigots without offering any specific examples of how these laws suppress voters.  In both Georgia and Texas, access to the polls has actually been expanded vs pre-pandemic requirements.  Even the Washington Post gave Joe Biden four Pinocchio’s for his suggestion that Georgia’s new law suppressed voting access there.

And if you think that voter ID is the issue, you would be wrong.  A recent Rasmussen survey found that 75% of Americans are in favor of voter ID and there is almost no difference between black and white voters on this issue.  In fact, most black Americans find it insulting to suggest that they are less capable of getting a photo ID to vote.

And maybe the biggest lie of all is that Joe Biden intends to unite our country.  He continually demonizes anyone who disagrees with him.  Calling virtually half of Americans racists and bigots is easy, but not uniting.  It requires no proof and actually shuts down any discussion that might lead to compromise.  A few months ago, President Biden stooped to calling Governor Abbott of Texas a “Neanderthal” for opening up that state’s economy.  Since that time Texas has consistently outperformed almost all other states, even California and New York.  When the President apologizes to Governor Abbott, I will consider that a small glimmer of hope that he actually intends to unite this country.  Unfortunately, I think his plan looks more like “divide and conquer” than unity and prosperity.

Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell

 The View from the Middle 

Thomas Sowell is a brilliant economist, social theorist and philosopher who you might not have heard of.  He has lived an extraordinary life, rich in experiences and formal education which has given him the material to write over 30 books.  He was born on June 30^th, 1930 (happy birthday, Thomas!) in Gastonia, North Carolina.  Unfortunately, his father died before his birth and because his mother already had four children, his great aunt along with her two grown daughters adopted and raised Thomas.  He was not born to privilege, but his challenging upbringing just added to the rich quiver of life trials and adventures that has formed his opinions.

At age nine they moved to Harlem, where he eventually qualified to attend the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York.  Unfortunately, at age 17 he was forced to withdraw from “the Stuy” for financial and family reasons.  But he didn’t turn to crime as a solution.  He got multiple jobs and even tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers before he went into the Marines as a photographer.  After leaving the Marines he took night classes at Howard University and scored high enough on College Board exams to enter Harvard.

I won’t bore you with an extensive list of his awards and accomplishments, but let me highlight just a few to give you a sense of the significance of his life’s work.  He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard after dropping out of high school at age 17.  He received his master’s degree from Columbia and his doctorate from UCLA and has served as a faculty member at Cornell and UCLA.  As if that’s not enough, he’s a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  He dabbled in Marxism in his early years, but he abandoned that notion in 1960 and his fellowship at Stanford is named after Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning, free market economist, whom he calls his mentor.  He has been an unapologetic capitalistic, libertarian ever since.  And, if he ran for President today, even at age 91, I would vote for him.  But sadly, he is too good for politics so we can best benefit from his wisdom by reading his books.

Thomas Sowell is not just a stone-cold genius, but he is a black man whose opinions are supported by more than his intellect and education.  He has lived through Jim Crow, discrimination, civil unrest and the civil rights movement, and those experiences along with his intelligence form his opinions.  I believe he is a “must read” when it comes to economics, of course, but also when he speaks out on race relations.  His books like “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, “Discrimination and Disparity” and his “Controversial Essays” are plainly written, powerfully reasoned and, as always supported by mountains of documented facts.  

There are many, many areas where Dr. Sowell and I agree. For example, he is no fan of our public-school system, and of course neither am I.  When my two daughters were in school, my wife and I had the luxury of “school choice” and sent our girls to a private, Christian school.  Our girls have been long out of school, and I would not personally benefit from a voucher system today, so why am I such a rabid supporter of that concept?  It’s because I think it is the best thing for our children and our country.  It would make our public schools compete or die, and it would give millions of people more choices in the education of their children.  That’s a choice that I had and it’s a choice that I believe every family should have.

Thomas Sowell put it this way, “No group is more in favor of vouchers than blacks – and no one is more opposed to vouchers than Democrats…This doesn’t mean that Democrats are racist.  It is just that they need the support of the teachers’ unions and they are not going to get it if they vote for vouchers, whereas they can count on the votes of blacks regardless.”  It is the ugly truth of politics.  Politicians often make choices not in the best interests of their constituencies in order to get elected.

In his “Controversial Essays” he added that, “public schools are where the battle needs to be fought, but too many black leaders are too dependent on labor unions in general and teachers’ unions in particular to fight that battle.  And they are too dependent on a vision of victimhood to risk telling young blacks that they have to get their own act together too.”  I love this thought because it states the obvious to me.  While all Americans need to work together to find solutions to our national problems, young black men and women must exercise some personal responsibility to eliminate any gaps (actual or perceived) between the races. 

If you haven’t read any of his books, I encourage you to do so.  I particularly recommend one of his most recent, “Discrimination and Disparities” or his “Controversial Essays, both of which I have read.  While the latter was written back in 2002, it demonstrates how things just don’t change – the issues or the real, thoughtful solutions to those issues.  And if you have the urge to tear down some statue, somewhere, I would prefer you erect one to this exceptional man in the place of your choosing!!

It's Easy to Divide & Destroy - Hard to Unite & Build

The View from the Middle

 

Back in 2014, I revealed the dirty little secret that terrorist groups employ around the world to extend their control and power.  They have figured out that it’s easier to divide and destroy than it is to unite and build.  The Twin Towers took seven years and the labor of thousands of people to build, but it took the demented effort of just 19 fanatics to bring them down in a few short hours.  It takes nine months to knit together the trillions of cells that is a child, but it takes just a few minutes to abort that life.  When are we going to learn?

Today, our country is being bombarded by multiple empty and negative campaigns that are designed to rip us apart, but promise to deliver nothing but hate and division.  Critical Race Theory (CRT) pits blacks against whites and whites against blacks.  It, at best, ignores the great progress we have made as a nation to bring true freedom and equality of opportunity to all of our people.  At worst, it denies it.  Even Bill Maher, liberal late-night talk show host, shines light on the falsity of that thinking.

I am on record as promoting the idea that we should all know and understand every aspect of our history.  There certainly are regrets in our past, but there is also much to be proud of.  There are men and women to be ashamed of, but there are also men and women we should honor.  CRT dwells on the negative aspects of our history as they push their “rear view mirror” approach to life.  The truth is, however, that while we should be aware of the past, we must be focused on the future if we are going to continue on our path to equality of opportunity.  CRT offers no plans for unity, only hatred and division as it suggests that we walk backwards into the future.

“Intersectionality” is another negative, destructive philosophy that is now being peddled throughout our country. If you look at the chart that explains this ludicrous philosophy, you’ll see that it divides Americans into 30 different slices.  It is the absolute definition of “divide and conquer”, just ask basketball Hall of Famer, Charles Barkley.  It suggests that if you are white, you are an oppressor.  And if you are black, you are a victim (oppressed).  There are no qualifiers.  Intersectionality demands that you judge people by their skin color, sexual orientation, gender and even age, but says nothing about the content of anyone’s character. 

Try to explain this to a six-year-old.  Tell him or her that if they are white, they are an oppressor and if they are black, they are a victim.  This is a terrible message no matter what side of the chart you land on.  It thwarts the prospect for a positive outcome in the future no matter where you fall on the chart.  Intersectionality offers no plan for the future at all.  It simply splits the country into 30 warring groups, and turns both halves against each other.  It’s easy to divide.

And finally, the country has recently been plagued by the explosion of “the cancel culture” where a group of self-identified judges tries to ruin the lives of people with whom they disagree.  I thought that America was the champion of freedom of speech and thought.  Heaven forbid that anyone in this country should dare have a different opinion than these arrogant, condescending “McCarthyites”.  The real goal, however, of this pompous, self-righteous group is to avoid the debate altogether.  If they can silent everyone who disagrees with them, they believe they win the argument, but what really happens is that America loses.  

The bottom line for the cancel culture is that they contribute nothing to the future and our progress in it.  They are solely focused on the destruction of anything different.  Seek and destroy is their motto.  Eliminating interaction is their game.

When will we learn as a country and as a people?  We need to reject these programs or philosophies that demonize and divide our country while also offering no real vision of a brighter future.  We, as a country, should continue to ride the horse that brought us here, which is a great place.  It is a place where millions of people risk their lives to get to every day.  It is a place that has delivered us from the ravages of slavery to our first black President and Vice President in just the last 12 years.

It is a place where we have the freedom of speech and thought and of worship, unless we allow the frauds of CRT, Intersectionality and the cancel culture to strip us of those fundamental rights.  It is the battle of ideas, not the stifling of them, that will deliver better solutions for us than any one sided, one party system ever could.  We can and should unite around our founding documents, like The Constitution and The Declaration of Independence, and our founding principles of liberty, equality of opportunity and faith in God.  That is what will unite our country and deliver us to that brighter tomorrow that we should all be striving to build together.

Inventing New Ways to Lie

The View from the Middle

 

The media and politicians in Washington never cease to amaze me.  I thought I had seen every kind of lie ever invented, but then our politicians and media, masters in the art of duplicity, went to their “lie-lab” and concocted at least three new ways to deceive the public.  To be honest, these aren’t brand new ways to lie, but just focus group tested twists on old lies that makes them more effective and lethal.  It is sort of like the virus enhancing research that was done in the Wuhan lab in China that created today’s Coronavirus.

I will call the first new lying format “Inventing Detractors”.  As the new administration approached the 200 millionth shot level here in the United States, President Biden said that, “Some told us that this couldn’t be done in the first 100 days”.  Really?  Who were these “some” people?  Give me the name of one person who didn’t think this could be done.  

The fact is, when Joe became President, he announced that his administration was going to accept the bold challenge of giving our 100 million shots in Americans arms by the end of his first 100 days in office.  Then someone in his staff pulled him aside and informed him that the Trump administration was already above that pace, and on pace to deliver over 200 million by his 100^th day.  In fact, according to the CDC, on the day Joe was inaugurated, 1.3 million people were vaccinated and was on a trend line to deliver three million shots per day by the end of March.  

Who were these people that didn’t think it was possible to deliver 200 million shots in the first 100 days of the Biden White House?  The truth is, there weren’t any experts who didn’t think this could happen.  The process and pace to go over 200 million shots was already in place.  All Joe had to do was sit back and do nothing, so Joe invented “some people” who doubted he could pull it off.  That’s a clever way to take credit for something Joe didn’t do, but it is far from truthful.

I’ll call the 2^nd new form of lying the “Wild Over-exaggeration”.  Back when the CDC was trying to convince people in this country to continue wearing masks outside, they made this statement, “Less than 10% of Covid-19 infections occur out of doors”.  That is a low percentage, but it implies that the true number is somewhere around 10%. Right?  Well, the real statement should be, “Less than .1% (one tenth of one percent) of infections occur outside.”  

Even the New York Times had to call BS on this statement.  The Times said that this statement is like saying “sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year.”  Sharks actually only attack around 150 people per year, so the 20,000 number is both true and deceiving at the same time.  Shouldn’t we be proud of these governmental bureaucrats on the absolute leading edge of distortion and equivocation in our country?  They are inventing brand new ways to deceive, frighten and manipulate our citizens.  What patriots!

I will call the final new form of falsification the “Follow the Science” lie.  You see, you can put those words in front of anything and it will supposedly deny any rebuttal to your claim.  What these new, frontline lie-developers have discovered is that what you put that statement in front of doesn’t even have to be true.  Isn’t that great!  You can lie with impunity and then just stick those three words in front of it and you’re golden.  Sweet!  Right?

Leading edge liars have used these words to tell us that our children shouldn’t be back in school, we had to shut down our economy and you must wear your masks outside.  Just yesterday, out of the blue, Uncle Joe Biden let us know that we NOW didn’t have to wear masks outside, or even inside, if we were vaccinated.  That statement was made after President Biden, who was famously vaccinated back in December, had stubbornly worn his mask indoors, outdoors and even during the recent “virtual” Climate Summit.  He was the only world leader, out of 17, who wore a mask during this international zoom session.  He was the image of fear and weakness for which he was roundly criticized.  At a time like this, our country needs a bold and courageous leader and even Joe sensed he was falling way short.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we are finally coming to our senses when it comes to mask wearing.  I don’t think it should have ever been mandatory, but my question is – what changed from Thursday to Friday?  What milestone did we hit in terms of vaccinations or Covid cases or deaths or hospitalizations that was driving this change in policy?  What science was driving this decision.  NONE!!

Who knew that changing the subject from multiple crises (like illegal immigration on our southern border, unrest in the Middle East, gas prices, inflation and challenges from Iran to North Korea to China) was a scientific reason to change the mask rules.  The polls were turning against Uncle Joe and he needed some positive news to distract us from his divisive, extreme and failed policies.  Follow the science?  Yah, the political science!!

When are we as a people going to learn our lesson.  Our politicians and media (but I repeat myself) do not have our best interests at heart.  They are both pursuing their own self-centered financial and power goals and, as Charles Barkley suggested, trying to divide and conquer us.  We need to unite in rejecting their duplicity and messages of fear and division.  2022 is just around the corner and it is our first chance to send a message to Washington.  And that message should be that we reject division, fear and manipulation and embrace unity, courage and freedom.

Anyone for School Choice Today?

 Anyone for School Choice Today?

The View from the Middle

 

Back in the 1980’s Al Shanker, then President of the United Federation of Teachers union, let the cat out of the bag when he famously said, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”  This Freudian Slip revealed the ugly truth that the teachers’ unions didn’t give a flip about our kids.  All of the teachers’ unions have tried to hide this reality from that day forward, but it is times like this when we can all see the truth in that statement and sentiment.

Throughout this pandemic the teachers’ unions have ignored the science (which they say they love) that children don’t acquire this disease very well, and they don’t transmit it very well.  If they do get Covid, their symptoms are usually mild and they rarely succumb to it.  In fact, the CDC’s data shows that children under the age of 20 have a 99.998% likelihood of surviving Covid-19 IF they are infected.  Despite all of the actual scientific evidence that children and even teachers are safer in school than out, the teachers’ unions have held our country and our children hostage and used this health crisis to advance their own interests at the expense of our kids.  Remember Rahm Emanuel’s (Obama’s first Chief of Staff) famous Freudian slip when he admitted that it was a Democrat Party strategy to, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”  

And the real problem is that American parents have no choice in this matter.  They must cave to the union demands or watch their children suffer the academic, emotional and even physical consequences of remote learning.  The fact is, 90% of American families send their children to public (government) schools.  If this were a business, it would be considered a monopoly.  Parents really don’t have a choice.

But private schools have been completely open for months with virtually zero consequences reported.  So, why don’t more parents send their children to private schools?  The number one reason given by parents is the cost of tuition.  Most people don’t like the idea of paying for one education for their kids through their taxes and then paying for another one through private school tuition.  

It is interesting, however, to look at who is more likely to send their children to private schools.  Public school teachers, for example, are twice as likely to send their children to private schools.  Let that fact sink in, and then consider the fact that 40% of our members of Congress send their children to private schools.  That’s four times the rate of an average family in the US.  They do it because they have options.  Primarily, these people have the financial resources that allow them to overcome that #1 barrier to pulling their kids out of the public school prison system, which is COST.

So, how could we allow everyone in America to have the same options, choices, opportunities that our political leaders have?  Vouchers!!  The average cost of a K through 12 education in the United States is $11,392 per year.  In Arkansas, where I live it is $9,694.  Interestingly, the highest cost of a public school education is $19,396, and that is in Washington DC.  I wonder why that is?  According to Forbes magazine, the average cost of a private school education in this country is $11,450, only a $58 per year difference from the public schools. according to Forbes magazine.  And the Catholic school average cost is only $7,350.  Wow, that’s actually quite the bargain.

In effect, our government gives this money to school buildings so that “we the people” can go those buildings and get a free education.  It isn’t “free” of course, because the government has NO money.  They simply take the money for these “free” educations out of our paychecks every month.  What if, however, we sent this money to parents in the form of a voucher that can only be used for education and allow them to choose the “building” to which they would send their children?  This would remove the monetary barrier that traps many families in the public school system and allow them the same choices that our members of Congress have.  Why shouldn’t every family in America have the same choice when it comes to education that our member of Congress and our Presidents have had.

Not only would this give every family in America real choice in education for their children, but it would make the public schools compete for students.  Public schools would either improve or die, and some should die.  The government school casualties, however, would be replaced by better schools – charter, private or public.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as they are better.

In closing, I need to point out that I have no skin in this game at all.  My children are out of college, but my wife and I had the luxury (the finances) to send both of our children to private schools for most of their education.  I would just like every family in America to have the same choices we had all those years ago.  If we had a voucher system this year, I’m guessing that many families would have made the leap out of the public school monopoly system and “chose” to send their children to schools that were actually open and cared about the children.  What do you think?

A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory

 A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory

The View from the Middle

 

If you look up the word “theory” in the dictionary, you will find multiple definitions, but there a couple that I think best apply to Critical Race Theory.  One definition states that a theory is “an unproven assumption or conjecture”.  A second suggests that a theory is “an abstract thought or speculation”.  So, before we start teaching this “theory” in our schools, I think it is important for everyone to understand the basic principles and even the many flaws in this theory.

The first and biggest flaw in Critical Race Theory is that it is racist at its core.  It actually turns Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech on its head.  It suggests that EVERYTHING must be viewed through a lens of race.  It insists that white people are racists and bigots and evil because of the color of their skin.  People should not be judged by the content of their character, but simply by the color of their skin.  This theory would take us all back over 200 years and simply switch the race that it deems appropriate to be ridiculed, demeaned and dehumanized.

Critical Race Theory also ignores or denies all the progress that we have made in this country over those last 200 years.  Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black member of Congress, was elected back in 1870, over 150 years ago (FYI, he was a Republican).  Even in the 1960’s we had only four black members of Congress, but today we have 57 African American members of the House of Representative’s total of 435 members or 13% of that body.  That percentage just happens to perfectly match the African American community’s share of the country’s total population.

In 2008 we elected the first Black President in The United States and Barack Obama was then re-elected for a second term in 2012.  Today, we have our first Black female as Vice President.  I’m sure that all of these members of Congress and Obama received a high percent of the black vote, but none of these people could have been elected without the support of millions of those racist, bigoted, evil white people.

Critical Race Theory also assumes that all Black people are perfect and have never made any poor choices that have resulted in negative consequences in their lives.  Despite the fact that it is illegal to deny anyone an education on the basis of race, young black students are more that 50% more likely to drop out of high school than whites.  Also, across America, almost 40% of our births are out of wedlock.  That is a terrible number for our country, but there are tremendous differences by race.  White births in the US are out of wedlock 28% of the time, which is too high, but young African Americans have children prior to marriage a whopping 69% of the time.  That’s a choice.  There is no gun to the heads of our young people forcing them to have unprotected sex.

The only reason I bring these two stats up is because they are the two most important behaviors that enhance the chances of people ending up living in poverty.  Single parent households, for example are almost six times more likely to live in poverty than two parent households (45% vs 8%), and dropping out of high school only increases that likelihood.  And these two categories represent choices, especially the choice to have children before marriage.  And if you want to argue that public education is systemically racist and put young black children at risk, remember that public schools ARE the government and you should all support “school choice” in education.

The book Cynical Theories points out the flaws of Critical Race Theory this way.  “It is bad psychology to tell people who do not believe that they are racist – who may even actively despise racism – that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racist, and then ask them to help you.”  Prager University points out another flaw with an example – “A man owns a store and two customers come in, one white and one black.  If the store owner addresses the black person first it’s because he doesn’t trust black people in his store, and that’s racist.  If he addresses the white person first it’s because he thinks that black people are second class citizens, and that’s racist.”  That is the definition of a no-win situation and is a very convenient argument for Critical Race Theorists to make.  It is, however, not based on any facts, just emotion.  Abraham Lincoln would put it this way, “If you look for racism in everything you experience, expecting to find it, you surely will.”  Now THAT is a fact, and you will also find racism in some places where it doesn’t even exist.

And now our government is planning to teach this unproven, divisive, destructive “theory” in our schools.  As if our schools aren’t struggling enough already just trying to teach the fundamentals of math and science as we fall further and further behind other countries in the world every year.  Now they intend to turn virtually all students against each other.  Half will be told that they are evil and will never deserve any success they could achieve so they shouldn’t even make the effort.  They will be telling the other half that any negative consequences in their lives are only the result of oppression by the other half whom they will undoubtedly hate.  This train of thought will suggest that they have no personal responsibility for the outcomes in their life.  What all this does is minimize the productivity of every child who will grow up to be equally unproductive adults.

The only good news in this story is that many, many Black thought leaders like Leo Terrell, Dr. Carol Swain, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell and Pastor Voddie Baucham are vigorously opposing the basic teachings of Critical Race Theory.  And I also support two modern-day Black philosophers who recently came out against hatred and manipulation, Charles Barkley and Tyler Perry.  Charles said that he believes that most White people and Black people are “awesome” and that our politicians (and the media) are just trying to make us hate each other.  They are trying to divide and conquer us.  Tyler Perry announced at the Oscars the he is tired of the hate and he asked everyone to refuse to hate Hispanics, Blacks, White people, LGBTQ and even the police.  He even gave a plug to this blog when he asked people to meet in “The Middle”, away from the extreme fanatics on both sides of the political spectrum where he said “progress is made”.  I certainly can agree with that!

If you really want to hear the solution to Racial Disparity and Discrimination you should read my post from June of last year called "EFFE".  I will re-release that post later next week.

Sir Charles Nails It

 Sir Charles Nails It

The View from the Middle

 

I have often written about the wonder of our country.  Our founders worked and battled and finally compromised to establish a self-correcting Constitution that would deliver the most powerful and free country in the world.  With five simple words in The Declaration of Independence (all men are created equal) they would begin the eradication of slavery in America and eventually deliver the first black President and Vice President of the United States.

The values and principles in those establishing documents has also delivered an amazing citizenry that has won two world wars, dug the Panama Canal and built the Hoover Dam.  And, despite politicians and the media’s attempts to demonize massive groups of people, America has developed the most giving, tolerant and kind people in the world.  I could write thousands of words laying out the progress we have made as a country and a people, but sometimes it is the simple words of a simple and yet wise man that captures the spirit of my argument.

Below is a direct quote from Charles Barkley, Hall of Fame professional basketball player, who described the current situation in our country in a way that is incredibly wise in its brevity, and with which I totally agree. Volumes of historical proof couldn’t say it any better.  Here are his words,

 

CHARLES BARKLEY: Man, I think most white people and black people are great people. I really believe that in my heart, but I think our system is set up where our politicians (and media), whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power. 

They divide and conquer. 

I truly believe in my heart most white people and black people are awesome people, but we’re so stupid following our politicians (and media), whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, and their only job is, ‘Hey, let’s make these people not like each other. We don’t live in their neighborhoods, we all got money, let’s make the whites and blacks not like each other, let’s make rich people and poor people not like each other, let’s scramble the middle class. 

I truly believe that in my heart.

 

To be totally honest, I added the (and media) parentheses above. If you want to actually watch the video, here is a link to the video.  Just copy this link into your browser and see Charles deliver his heartfelt analysis.  I couldn’t have said it better with a million words.  Way to go, Charles.!!

 

https://www.cnsnews.com/index.php/blog/craig-bannister/charles-barkley-most-white-people-and-black-people-are-awesome-people