It's Time to Stop Romanticizing the Past

   I hear it all the time from many people I know. "It wasn't like this back in [insert era]." "Kids these days are so weak. They aren't raised like they used to. Kids used to be tough." "Back in the Colonial era [or the days of the Ancient Israelites, or what have you], there weren't any teenagers. Kids grew up a lot faster. None of this nonsense we have now." Or "America used to be such a God-fearing nation, and look at us now! If only America was the same as it was in the day of the Founders." "In World War Two, we had real men, and now, young men get PTSD from social media posts!" I've even heard someone say that this is the only era where kids really disobey their parents, that before modern times, children obeyed without question.

   Look. I won't deny that the past had its bright spots. We wouldn't have civilization without the bright spots of the past. But, much like human nature itself, the history of the world is a long, varied history of misery and destruction and sin. We tend to focus only on the brightness of the past as contrasted with our present mistakes, but that gives us a rose-colored view of history.  This age isn't any better or worse than any previous time. The eras of the past did not have it more together than we do. The miseries we focus on that we claim are all our own are often reflected in the past by similar miseries.

   1. The past century is hardly the first with US government overreach. John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, the second president of the United States, pressed for and signed laws that made it illegal to speak out against the president or government. He thought such talk was treasonous and would doom the republic. He made sure newspapers were shut down and people were jailed for criticizing him. Incidentally, this is the primary reason he was a one-term president.

   2. Abraham Lincoln had many instances of government overreach. Among those was calling up the militias of various states without prior authorization from the proper parties, writing executive orders that were treated as legislation even though he had no jurisdiction over the places he attempted to order around (ever heard of the Emancipation Proclamation, anyone?), and suspending the right of habeas corpus (that is, the right to be brought to court to determine whether you were lawfully imprisoned).

  

   3. The ancient Israelites did indeed declare their children adults at around the age our children become teenagers, which is understandable for a time when life expectancies are incredibly low and the most important part of becoming an adult is producing offspring. This, however, does not mean they were wiser than we are or that their teenagers were more mature than ours or that any of the ancient Israelites had it more together than we do. Here's a short list of things the ancient Israelites frequently did based only on Old Testament accounts: 

    sacrifice their children on burning altars to the idol Molech

    worship the literal sun

    sell their neighbors and each other into slavery

    frequently gang rape travelers (Judges 19, in case you were wondering)

    fight a civil war over said gang rape, ostracize an entire state, then kidnap Israelite women and force them to marry random men just to make up for rash promises made in the heat of battle

    sacrifice their children in the name of God (also in Judges, just so you know)

    worship any and every god that came along from other places

   frequently practice polygamy

    set up Temple prostitutes (not the gender you're thinking of) right outside the Temple built by Solomon

    somehow lose the Law of Moses for generations, multiple times

    occasionally resort to cannibalism and petition the king to mediate because one woman killed her son and ate him and the neighbor broke her promise to do the same

   I could go on, but I feel like I've made my point.

   4. The vice president of Thomas Jefferson killed a prominent politician while he was in office. Aaron Burr's political career was ruined after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

   5. While many Americans during the Colonial era were Christians, or at least attending church, the Enlightenment was spreading through Europe, an atheistic movement that depended on reason to figure out truth. This movement did not leave America untouched either.

   6. And let's not forget the glaringly obvious issue of the Colonial era we so hold up. Yes, many of the Founders hated slavery, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. But it was still very legal and very present in America and pretty much everywhere else in the world. Not to mention all the

    smallpox

    malaria

    yellow fever

    measles

    bad water

    dysentery

    cholera

    terrible medical practices such as bleeding

    surgery without anesthesia

    lack of running water

    high infant mortality rates

    backbreaking laundry and scalding soap

    reliance on wooden ships for overseas products

    no air condition

    general disregard for women

    lack of decent education available to the poor

    a life expectancy of 36 

    the church bells rang for the dead so much that they were deemed by law to be a public nuisance

   7. Talk about race riots. Back in the 1850s, there was literal guerilla warfare on both sides of the issue of whether Kansas would enter the union as a free or slave state.

   8. While I forever honor the sacrifices of the generation that fought in World War II, this is not to diminish them. However, we still ought to acknowledge their faults. For instance, the lack of regard for mental health professionals and mental disorders that led to many veterans struggling alone with alcoholism and other addictions, PTSD, and pornography. Not to mention the higher rates of domestic violence, disregard for women, and polio. Also, this was the generation that fully endorsed eugenics and even began practicing it until the news of the Holocaust broke.

   The point I'm trying to make is that while there were good things about the past, there were also plenty of bad things, and we can't pretend like there weren't. Many in mainstream society tend to only focus on the negative aspects of history, but we can't let this drive us to only focus on the positive aspects. Both are dishonest and don't lead to a proper understanding of the past. For if we don't know the mistakes of the past, how can we hope to not repeat them?

The Great Rights Illusion Part Two

   I apologize for the delay in getting this post up.
   Read Part One here.

   Where do rights come from?

   We have established that rights are permanent gifts given to everyone equally at their creation, unable to be transferred, denied, sold, or taken. But who gives us these rights?

   We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights....  (emphasis added)

   Rights are given to men by the Creator, God Almighty. This very fact has the potential to change lives. But why?

   I'm sure you've heard of civil rights, political rights, legal rights, and those such things. Well, those things as we know them don't actually exist. See, according to the definitions of these words, their existence often hinges on the government. Many people, government officials especially, talk about "giving" or "taking away" our civil rights. But, as we have seen, rights come, not from government, but from God. No government can give rights or take them away. They cannot deny us our rights or transfer them to another. What does this mean?
   One of the hottest topics in today's culture is the government "taking away" our right to keep and bear arms. Putting aside for a moment all the debates over whether that is a right and what "keep and bear arms" actually means, let's examine this debate in the light of our new knowledge.
   The government does not give us our rights and cannot take them away. No one can take them away. This means that even should a government declare it illegal to ever own a weapon, every man still has an absolute right to keep and bear arms, and even should the government send troops to take those weapons away, men have every right to stand up and fight them. In fact, that was how our country was founded (look up the battles at Lexington and Concord in 1775 and learn more about them).
   Freedom of speech is one of the most hated rights by governments. Almost no other right has been the center of more attacks and laws. However, since our rights come from our Creator and not our government, we always have and always will have the right to speak our minds. Even should they arrest us, put us in jail, or kill us for exercising our right, our right it will remain. No government can tell you to shut up.
   Clearly, this is radical, even dangerous thinking. Yes, there is a reason the American Declaration of Independence has been banned in many countries all over the world. But if we can break through the Great Rights Illusion, we can become so much more than what we are now. If we embrace what we've been given by God and refuse to let anyone lie to us about it, we will do what Americans have done since the beginning of our country, what we are known for.
   We will change the world.

Is Hate Speech Protected by the First Amendment?

   "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." It's one of the things we all grew up hearing and disagreeing with. Let's face it, we all know words can do much more damage than sticks and stones. This is the reason most of the protests nowadays have something to do with hate speech. (If you are unfamiliar with this term, this means anything considered offensive, racist, sexist, etc.) People everywhere are crying out that the government shut down people promoting hate speech. They want government entities and private companies to refuse to allow scheduled protesters to come to their campuses and other spots because they'll be promoting hate speech. And everyone everywhere says that it's not protected by the Constitution.
   It sounds good on paper. But the truth is quite a bit different and somewhat harder to hear.
   The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

   It's clean and simple. What people have to say is protected by the Constitution. Period. People may say things that are hateful, things that are rude and mean and arrogant and wrong, but even if we don't like it, it's not the government's place to tell them to shut up. Unless someone is threatening your life, purposefully slandering your reputation, or spreading secrets they swore to protect, the government cannot and should not prosecute them.
   It's a hard truth to learn. It's not easy to hear things you disagree with. It's not easy to be lied about, cursed at, insulted, or offended. But if we turn to the government to start regulating the things we don't like, the things that make us uncomfortable, and the things that hurt us, we will be falling down a slippery slope that we may have to fight a war to get back up. Once we allow the government to start regulating speech, even speech considered hate speech, all the government has to do to suppress freedom of speech and the press is to throw people's words under the umbrella of hate speech and then everyone can be shut up.

   I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death the right to say it.

   This idea, put so cogently by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, a biographer of Voltaire, perfectly demonstrates the attitude of free speech. It was hard for me to get behind at first, but I value freedom so much I eventually took it to heart. Honestly, what the KKK has to say makes me want to vomit. Fascist and anti-fascist groups alike make me want to scream. But no matter what I think of what they have to say, if anyone tries to shut them up with the law, I will fight that person to my last breath. If we call on the government to solve our problems, we will eventually find them controlling our lives.
   Instead of screaming at the government to ban the KKK and kick out the neo-Nazis from their planned protests, why don't we try peacefully spreading the truth instead? When somebody says something that offends us or makes us mad, when someone blatantly lies, instead of screaming at them or wailing that hate speech isn't supported by the First Amendment, why don't we try to calmly confront the liars with the truth or just simply walk away?
   Frankly, saying "hate speech isn't protected by the First Amendment" is a threat to our freedom. Because eventually, the legislators will believe it and they will act on it. They will pass laws prohibiting hate speech and they will enforce them. It will start out innocent, but it won't stay that way. Pretty soon, innocent people will be thrown in jail simply for speaking their minds. It could be me. It could be you.
   Freedom of speech is one of the most precious things we possess in our country. None of us want that to go away. So next time someone says something that offends you, something ignorant or prejudiced or just plain mean, instead of screaming at the government to shut them up or responding in kind to the ignorance and the hate, try taking a deep breath, respecting their (wrong) opinion, and spreading the truth.