Fahst, let's all just simah down!

By Joseph Walther

In case you have not noticed, it has become rather testy nowadays just trying to have an intelligent conversation, especially if it involves politics in the presence of one or two visceral-minded Neanderthals.

I have stopped watching ALL cable news/pundit channels as of this past Saturday. If I hear one more “learned” analysis concerning the words of Barack Obama’s pastor, another hint of a Bill Clinton/Joe McCarthy comparison, so much as a whisper of comparing Hillary Clinton to the Wicked Witch of the West, or another word about John McCain seeking right-wing televangelists’ endorsements, I’m going to go stark raving nuts!

A friend of mine sent me an email containing a YouTube video clip this past Friday evening. It was a fantastic clip and it brought back memories of those saner days of yesteryear. I’ve put a link below, but first, let me give you some background.

In 1951, a comedian by the name of Red Skelton hit the TV airwaves. His show started out on Sunday nights but switched to Tuesday nights beginning in 1953. I was only 9-years-old when I watched my first episode. I thought Red Skelton was not only the funniest man who ever lived, but one of the smartest.

Fast forward several years. I was visiting my mother’s house one Tuesday night in 1969—a couple of years before the end of Mr. Skelton’s show. In her house, on Tuesday night, you watched Red Skelton or ELSE!

He did a skit on the Pledge of Allegiance. It was, and remains so to this day—and I’m now 65-years-old—the most meaningful and moving tribute to our flag that I’ve ever heard. Click here to listen to it. Compare his words to what is happening today. It’ll make you cry.

We can’t even have a decent conversation about the flag or patriotism today. Somehow, in today’s warped society, we’ve come to accept the implication that if people are not Democrats or Republicans, they’re troublemakers. If we fail to identify with EITHER Liberals or Conservatives, the moron segment of society will accuse us of lacking any sense of conviction.

If we don’t hop on the God wagon and espouse an absolute advocacy for Christianity, we’re Satan worshipers. If we criticize the Bush Administration’s shredding of the Constitution by demanding the reinstatement of Habeas Corpus, the Geneva Conventions, and a return to a meaningful form of Democracy, we’re siding with terrorists.

Like it or not, folks, the terms, Liberal and Conservative are NOT mutually exclusive. They never have been.

People seem to have lost the distinction between patriotism and nationalism. The former emphasizes LOVE for our OWN nation and national causes above all else. It’s mostly positive. The latter emphasizes HATRED for all OTHER nations and national causes above all else. It’s mostly negative.

If you get your opinions strictly from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, or Al Franken, to name just a handful of blind zealots, you’re part of the problem, not the solution. Try to remember that rearranging prejudices is not the same as thinking.

The more I listen to TV political analysts and pundits—both sides—I get the feeling that we’ve come to settle for convenience as an overriding political imperative. Certainly, when we do this, the rest of the world can rightly infer our automatic willingness to demote truth to a mere secondary option.

The Pledge of Allegiance is big on the term, liberty. In part it reads, “…indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” However, it’s interesting to listen to all the “nationalists,” masquerading as “patriots,” as they run around spouting off about our Constitution and how it guarantees our liberties/freedoms.

Well, it guarantees no such thing. Freedom exists in the minds and hearts of those who are willing and able (at all costs) to take it and keep it. If it ceases to exist there, it’s gone and words on a faded sheet of parchment paper will be useless.

This nation wanted freedom bad enough at the beginning that our founding fathers—patriots ALL—laid their lives and fortunes on the line to obtain it. Since then, we’ve always demonstrated, to the entire world, our willingness and ability to secure it, even to the death.

But, we must be willing and able to take and hold onto our freedom—we need BOTH. If either our willingness OR our ability ever cease to be, freedom will become nothing but an empty word, as it is in so many other parts of the world.

Folks, we need to grow up pretty soon if we expect to be around as a sovereign nation for another two hundred plus years. It’s a small world and it’s getting smaller by the hour. As large and as powerful as the United States is, we’re just bullies if we fail to convince the rest of the world that we’re NOT.

Finally, since this is Easter Sunday in the Christian world, I’m going to try and clarify a couple of terms we’ve heard bantered about many times over the past few years. And, never forget that most labels used to describe people tend not only to be relative but also grossly misused.

“Infidel” is one such term. In the United States, for example, it is one of the terms misused to describe people who do not believe in the Christian Religion. In Iran and other hot spots in the Middle East, it is a term used to describe those who DO!

I’m not trying to defend extreme Islamic fundamentalism; I’m just stating a reality. As frightening as terrorism is, learning to live without certainty is infinitely more useful to us than letting ourselves be paralyzed by fear, intimidation, and hesitation.

The term “scriptures” is another relative term. Whenever we’re discussing OUR holy religion, scriptures are the holy books that define it. Of course, by implication and inference, we always distinguish OUR holy scriptures from all of those false and profane writings that define those “other” religions.

For those of the Christian faith, have a holy and happy Easter Sunday. No matter, though, I’ll be back next Sunday.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Copyright laws apply to all material on this site. Send your comments. Just click here.