Virtually every week there is some news item about the war on America’s founding ideals.
In Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, the “shot heard round the world” rang out, which was the very beginning of the American War for Independence. But, syndicated columnist Don Feder notes, that town recently “removed three historical markers, which had been in place since 1930, that commemorated the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 300 years earlier,” lest the signs offend woke sensitivities.
In the state of Michigan recently, we have seen Muslims in what has been called “Dearbornistan” chanting “Death to America.” What ingratitude.
We also see people in high places of America who, it would seem, want to see the nation die.
Conservative critics would argue that one way of killing off America is by forcing woke policies until they bankrupt us spiritually, socially, militarily, culturally, academically, and so on.
Woke policies often use the acronym DEI for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. But isn’t Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson correct when he says that DEI should be more accurately called DIE? Because whatever things the woke policies touch ultimately die.
President Biden hired Antony Blinken as Secretary of State. Blinken hired Zakiya Carr Johnson, who does not have a high view of the founding principles of America, to put it nicely.
In a now-deleted post, Carr Johnson wrote, “I understand that we cannot have equity without dismantling structural racism, patriarchy and heterosexism.”
She also pens, “These are chinks in the armor of traditional leadership that refuse to reconcile with a colonizing past, or recognize that time has run out for experimentation and tweaking of a failed historic model.”
Carr Johnson’s role in the State Department? Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.
What is she saying? America has a “colonizing past” and is a “failed historic model.” Gary Bauer of Our American Values responds to that remark: “I’d like to know what her preferred ‘model’ is.”
To this day, people risk their lives to come to America. Perhaps the DEI revisionists should go to the border and tell migrants to turn around, since we’re just “a failed historic model.”
But are we? The founding fathers weren’t perfect. But they got a lot of things right.
America’s framers showed the world a better way to promote lasting good in the world. You begin with the foundational truth that our rights come from God, not the state. And then, building on that clear structure, because of man’s inherent sinful nature, you divide power so that no one man or small group can seize all the power for themselves. As James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, summed up well: “All men having power ought to be distrusted.”
In my documentary on the Constitution (“We the People”) for Providence Forum, some of the guests from different backgrounds remarked how pleased they are to be Americans.
Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., told our viewers, “I’m very grateful, very blessed, and delighted to be an American, because there’s so much liberty still in this great land. Many problems, and I will not deny that we have those problems. But there is still opportunity in America. There is still hope in America. There is still prayer in America, and I continue to pray for America.
The late Billy Falling, a pastor and author, said, “As a Native American, the Constitution means to me that I have a protection, I have a wall, I have something that covers me, and that is the rule of law.”
Father Leon Hutton, a priest based in Ventura, California, noted, “As a Catholic, the Constitution has meant to us the opportunity to freely practice faith as we see it and to celebrate it and to share it with others and allow it to be part of the human discourse in the United States of America.”
Dennis Prager, the Jewish founder of PragerU, remarked, “Let me take the question of what America’s meant to the Jews and incorporated in that is the Constitution. This is the Judeo-Christian country. Christians rooted in [Judaism] founded the country; Jews knew this. Jews who came to America from Europe called it the ‘Golden Medina,’ the golden country, not money gold, but the prize place. Look, ‘God Bless America’ was written by a Jew. Jews were in love with this country and for good reason.”
There’s a famous aphorism that circulates around Washington, D.C.: “Personnel is policy.” The beliefs of the people working in powerful positions in various departments will eventually become the policy of those departments. It’s distressing to see enemies of America’s founding principles in so many high places. Too many of our public officials are woke. The rest of us need to be awakened before we lose the country.
Dr. Jerry Newcombe is the executive director of Providence Forum, a division of Coral Ridge Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air contributor. He has written/co-written 33 books, including (with D. James Kennedy), What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? and (with Dr. Peter Lillback), George Washington’s Sacred Fire.