When I was in elementary school, around the fifth grade, I remember an encyclopedia salesman coming into our classroom and promoting his collection of a dozen leather-bound books. For clarification for readers under the age of twenty, encyclopedias were the forerunners of today’s Wikipedia—or, perhaps more accurately, Google; i.e., Wish to know something about anything? Google it, right?
Well, after making his pitch to the class, the encyclopedia salesman gave each of us a little button that we could wear as a reminder of his wonderful, indispensable product. The button read:
We Never Guess,
We Look It Up!
So, I, being just one of many self-appointed class clowns, pinned on the button and immediately and proudly declared, “I never guess, I make it up!” (insert titters from 10-year-olds here).
Image by ChatGPT.
Never guessing and just going ahead and making something up might be a brilliant joke for young children, but it turns into a dangerous mindset—even going as far as becoming an evil way of thinking—when applied to important cultural and political issues. Four examples come to mind.
The first, of course, is obviously in the world of journalism; the second is in the moral lies to justify abortion; and the third is how we got from two guys being sexually attracted to one another to surgically removing sexual organs from children; and fourth, just how easily, it seems, that our country can break apart at the seams because of the historical and factual lies about racism.
Let’s go a little deeper on each.
- Shoddy Journalism
Making things up instead of getting the facts straight seems to have permeated what began as a noble, truth-seeking profession: journalism. Now it appears that we are living in an age of “the facts be damned, full steam ahead” on some hot, juicy anonymous tip. Case in point: the recent Wall Street Journal revelation about Donald Trump’s alleged big, beautiful birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein.
Evidence, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Does passing off shoddy evidence as absolute truth surprise anyone anymore?
When Jussie Smollett was attacked, claiming that MAGA thugs put a noose around his neck, called him naughty names, and did other unspeakable things, were we instantly to believe that that’s exactly what one would expect from those nasty nut-job, brain-dead hicks who, like extras in a George Romero film, waddle after Trump?
Did it really need to take a court case to finally drill down to the truth behind Smollett’s ludicrous claims?
And juxtaposed with the crazy “conspiracy theories” running amok in the press about MAGA miscreants, Smollett-esque charges commenced against a sitting, and then not-sitting, President of the United States.
Donald Trump, as president, was twice dragged through impeachment on manufactured charges associated with being a Russian puppet; then, after being drummed out of office, lo and behold, more jury-rigged charges emerged. Ex-president Trump was hauled into court(s) again and again for, among other grievances, a decades-old sexual assault claim that perfectly matched a TV show plot and a victimless real-estate fraud.
Was it Joseph Goebbels or was it Saul Alinsky who said something along the lines of, “Accuse your opponent of what you yourself are doing, to create confusion and to inculcate people against evidence of your own guilt”?
I suppose either of these two rascals, Goebbels or Alinsky, can be credited with these words and basic idea. Either way, it has played out successfully in several dark eras of human history. This idea needs to up and die, like Mr. Bojangles’ dog, and those promoting it should apologize or at least say “oops” to the rest of us.
- Abortion
The very first time I saw the obvious evil on a national scale in this country was in 1973 when the Supreme Court was debating the legalization of abortion. Back then, I was a sophomore in college.
When I seriously considered what was unraveling in the discussion, it became clear that the debate centered around the peripheral decision of “choice.” I thought, “What choice are we talking about?”
I thought back then (and still do) that there is no question that if you wave away the smoke screen, what is at the bottom of this crucial decision was/is “human life.” In fact, if the life were not human, there would be no debate. An eagle’s egg isn’t considered filled with a blob of tissue until a tiny eagle emerges. Therefore, lawfully, you cannot destroy that egg without legal ramifications.
Now, of course, abortion on demand has become abortion through all nine months of pregnancy—and, in some cases, even after birth.
- Homosexuality
In the case of homosexuality, what began as “What we do behind closed doors in our own bedrooms is none of your business” has morphed into “You must endorse and celebrate our devious acts performed in public and allow us to indoctrinate and surgically alter your children.”
So, what was originally promoted as big Bill just wants to have sex with another big Bill, has transitioned to little Bill needs to become a little Jill.
- Racism
As devious and disastrous as these first three evils are, the fourth in the category of “worst,” racism, tops them both. Why? Because in its most weaponized form, it has become acceptable, i.e., “acceptable racism.” And when it is acceptable, it goes from slavery based on skin color in the early American colonies, to feeling justified to vote into the office of President someone of similar skin color to make up for what your ancestors may or may not have condoned.
Voting for someone based on “the color of their skin not the content of their character,” someone whose stated target is to uproot our founding ideals (that “all men are created equal,” for example), by “fundamentally transforming” our precious country, is the kind of racism that leads to a nation’s demise.
There are many who will point to abortion as the biggest stain on America, and there is certainly much reason for that assumption. However, as much as I am inclined to lean that way myself, I believe that if God is ultimately judging this country for that particular abomination, He is using the other national disgrace, racism, as a means to level that righteous judgment.
Recently, seemingly overwhelming facts of national importance have been uncovered by Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. Allegedly, a “year-long coup” was orchestrated by President Barack Obama and his administration against Donald Trump in his first election and first term in office. If presented to the courts and allowed to play out through our judicial system, digging deeper into these disclosures and allegations could lead to race riots multiple-times greater than those manufactured for the George Floyd so-called “miscarriage of justice.”
Those on the Right (Christians and Conservatives) marched peacefully to end the evil of abortion-on-demand; those on the Left paraded peacefully to celebrate homosexuality (in all its mutations and mutilations). But when it comes to reactions to a person’s race, violence in the form of destruction of property and death rise up from racist ruffians like Black Lives Matter and ferocious fascist fronts like Antifa.
These nefarious elements embedded in the nation’s lifeblood could spell very dark and destructive times ahead.
We shall see.
All of the above things happen when people lose their factual and moral anchors—we no longer have reliable authorities where we can look things up. We just make it up as we go along.
Until we find those touchstones again, prayer is required by those who not only love the Holy and Righteous God who influenced and established this country from its conception, but who deeply love their homeland, as well.
Albin Sadar is author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin was formerly the producer of “The Eric Metaxas Show.”