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WAR ON CONFEDERATE STATUES CONTINUES
The hard left’s continued war against American culture and history continues with their ongoing war against Confederate monuments.
A memorial to Thomas Jefferson will receive an update which will reflect his complexity as both a founding father and a slave owner. Similarly, in Virginia, ten-thousand people have voted to replace a statue in Olde Town Portsmouth with one of Missy Elliott. The petition read:
“Hailing from humble beginnings as the only child of a power company dispatcher and a welder at Portsmouth’s lauded naval shipyard, she rose to become a platinum recording artists with over 30 million albums sold. All this without even once owning a slave. Together we can put white supremacy down, flip it and reverse it.”
In Texas, twenty-five-year-old Andrew Schneck has been arrested for attempting to blow a Confederate statue. He was discovered with two boxes, duct tape, wires, and a bottle of liquids comprised of compounds used as explosives.
The Democrat Senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, has expressed the opinion that Confederate statues ought to be replaced with statues of Pocahontas. Kaine explains:
“I think as you look at the scope of Virginia history here in 2017 and if you want there to be two people to really stand for who Virginia is, why wouldn’t you think about Pocahontas, who had she not saved John Smith’s life, we wouldn’t be here possibly.”
Jeh Johnson has referred to Conderdate monuments as “rallying points for white nationalism, for neo-nazis, and for the KKK” on ABC’s This Week. Johnson said:
“President Trump said this week that Jefferson and Washington were slave owners, where does it stop? Where does it end? I think most Americans understand, most African-Americans understand that many of the founders of our nation were slave owners. But most of us are not advocating that we take them off the currency or drop Washington’s name from the nation’s capital. I have first cousins, cousins whose names are Washington. They’re not changing their names. They’re proud of their name.”
He continued:
“What alarms so many of us from a security perspective is that so many of the statues, the Confederate monuments are now modern-day becoming symbols and rallying points for white nationalism, for neo-Nazis, for the KKK. This is most alarming. We fought a world war against Nazism. The KKK rained terror on people for generations. People are alarmed. I salute those in cities and states taking down monuments for reasons of public safety and security. That’s not a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of public safety and Homeland Security and doing what’s right.”
Slavery was a blight on American history and should rightly be condemned. However, removing Confederate monuments or attempting to rewrite or ignore history is not the answer. History should not be censored, but rather should be studied and learnt from.
DILIGENCE
This week for our theological article we will be looking at one of the seven cardinal virtues: diligence. The word itself derives from the Latin “diligentia” meaning “attentiveness” and “carefulness.” It is the practice of “careful and persistent work or effort.”
Needless to say, diligence is an extremely important quality in the Christian faith. It is where our faith begins and it is the key to fulfilling God’s purpose on earth. In Proverbs 10:4 it is written:
“Poor is he who works with a negligent hand. But the hand of the diligent makes rich.”
Likewise, it is written in Proverbs 21:5:
“The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage. But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.”
And it’s not just true for religion, either. Diligence is a key aspect of social and economic success. People renowned for their diligence include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Clara Barton, J.D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.
In other words, diligence is the key to achieving “impossible” goals and developing all other virtues. As human beings, we are required to toil for the things we have, to tend the fields, mine ore, spend the majority of our lives engaged in mental or physical labour. It is how we build our character and develop our sense of self-respect.
So, how do we become more diligent? Fortunately for us, Solomon has a few words of wisdom.
First, Solomon tells us to “wake up to reality.” We cannot be diligent while our minds are still stuck in the clouds.
Second, define your visions. If you expect to get somewhere, you have to know where you are going. Defining your goals, coming up with a mental picture of what you would like to achieve makes it significantly more likely you will be successful.
Third, effectively partner. You are not infallible, therefore you need to work with others who will offset your personal limitations.
Fourth, build your life upon the pursuit of wisdom. Use good judgement, knowledge, and experience as stepping-stones to success.
FALLOUT OVER PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PRESS CONFERENCE
President Trump has been heavily criticised for appearing to defend the alt-right in the wake of the devastating Charlottesville car attack in a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Throughout the conference, Trump appeared agitated and defensive. When asked why it had taken him so long to condemn the Unite the Right protesters, Trump answered:
“I didn’t wait long. I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct. Not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement was correct a fine statement, but you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. It’s a very, very important process to me. And it’s a very important statement. So I don’t want to go quickly and make a statement for the sake of making a political statement. I want to know the facts. If you go back to my original statement … I brought it.”
Trump went on to defend his statement on Saturday, saying:
“Excuse me, excuse me, take it nice and easy. Here’s the thing. When I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts. This event just happened. In fact, a lot of the event didn’t even happen yet as we were speaking. This event just happened. Before I make a statement, I need the facts. So I don’t want to rush into a statement. So making the statement when I made it was excellent. In fact, the young woman who I hear was a fantastic young woman, and it was on NBC, her mother wrote me and said though I guess Twitter, social media, the nicest things. And I very much appreciated that. I hear she was a fine, really actually an incredible young woman. But her mother on Twitter thanked me for what I said. And honestly, if the press were not fake, and it was honest, the press would have said what I said was very nice. But unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”
Then Trump switched his focus to attacking the “alt-left”:
I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned very different groups. But not all those people were”I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned very different groups. But not all those people were neo-Nazis, believe me, not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. And you take a look at some of the groups and you see, and you’d know it if you were honest reporters which in many cases you’re not, but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself where does it stop. But they were there to protest, excuse me, take a look at the night before, they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.”
Republican Senator for Florida, Marco Rubio defended President Trump’s statement on twitter:
“Mr. President, you can’t allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame. This is simple: we must condemn and marginalize white supremacist groups, not encourage and embolden them.”
However, the reaction from both Republicans and Democrats has been overwhelmingly negative. Democrat Congresswoman from New York, Kathleen Rice, tweeted: “President Trump is a racist. Period. He’s gone out of his way to make that clear, so let’s not tip-toe around it. He’s a racist.” Similarly, Democrat Senator from Hawaii, Brian Schaltz tweeted: “As a Jew, as an American, as a human, words cannot express my disgust and disappointment. This is not my president.” Meanwhile, former House Majority Leader and Republican Congressman from Virginia, Eric Cantor criticised Trump for equating the counter-protesters with the alt-right.
Trump’s plight certainly hasn’t been helped by the support he has been receiving from white supremacists. Richard Spencer told the Washington Examiner that he was grateful to Trump for “defending the truth.” Likewise, Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, tweeted:
“Thank you President Trump, for your honesty and courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville and condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”
There can be little doubt that President Trump deserves wide-spread criticism for his refusal to directly name and shame neo-nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right for their role in the events in Charlottesville on Saturday. He rightly deserves criticism for refusing to condemn the alt-right during his Presidential campaign.
And the people who should be criticising him should be the American people, not the hypocritical mainstream media and political left who only seem to find their moral indignation when evil can be attributed to the right.
This, after all, is the same media that overhypes every threat of right wing violence and turns every crime committed by a right winger into a condemnation of all conservatives, but conveniently turns a blind eye to the violence committed by antifa in Seattle, Sacramento, and Berkeley. The same media that has presented right wing violence as a bigger threat to people’s safety than Islamic terrorism, which has routinely downplayed its threat, and vilified anyone who wishes to talk about the issue as being an “Islamaphobe.”
Then there’s the left wing media’s remarkable lack of criticism towards Barack Obama. They did not condemn Obama’s speech in Dallas, Texas, where he blamed the murder of five police officers on the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery, and claimed the police were unfairly and systematically targeting African Americans.
Does President Trump deserve criticism for his refusal to name and shame those responsible for the violence on Saturday? Undoubtedly yes. But the mainstream media and political left have no moral authority to do so.
King Alfred Press 