First of all, can we move on from the events of January 6th? It was four years ago and we are STILL listening to politicians complain about it. In light of a war in Ukraine and unrest brewing even more fiercely in the Middle East, it seems in the wrong spirit. I have so many more questions, but as a Christian historian, here are my largest takeaways for you to ponder with me.
Fall in line or keep quiet. This is what is being “transgressed” within the three confirmation hearings that have taken place this week. None of the three candidates—RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel—are yes-men. They have asked hard questions, stepped outside of predetermined roles, and thought outside of long established boxes. And they are receiving the payback of being freethinkers in a system that does not value freedom of thought in the form of angry senators and name calling accusations on public news.
We’re training our children to do this too, though, aren’t we? When we send them to schools that have been forced to utilize Common Core where predetermined answers are what is sought after within textbooks and worksheets, when we leave them at the government’s doorstep within public education and they are not required to exhume thoughts but merely fill-in-the-blanks, we are robbing them of the ability to be individuals. We are allowing them to become robotically inclined regurgitators of prepackaged ideas and answers, with no real logic and no real chances at breaking out of the mold.
The public school system was founded on socialistic standards, based off of Karl Marx’s Marxism and John Dewey’s public socialism, combined with J.D. Rockefeller and other proponents of public education for factory workers who famously said that we should teach children “everything about nothing.” They just wanted a holding space for children that they could no longer put to work in their factories for a profit, and they had no interest in grooming them for anything other than becoming mass minions that would clock in and clock out without question. And this is what we have allowed to be created.
This is subsequently what our leaders are helping us become. There are many reasons (lobbyists, personal agendas, the status quo, etc.), but the truth is still the truth: not only do they allow it on their watch, but they’re products of it themselves.
If you get labeled a conspiracy theorist, it’s likely because you hold an opinion aside from the generally held convictions that have been mass fed to the public. Suddenly, not wearing a mask becomes grounds for ostracism and hate, not gentle disagreement and extra space. If you don’t fall in line with the agreed upon narrative, you’re a bad guy and there are no morals when dealing with a villain (or so the logic goes).
As a Christian and a historian, this saddens me. Not only have we lost the ability to respectfully agree to disagree (read my substack from Thursday), but we’ve lost the ability to show grace and compassion. Additionally, I find it rather rich that Christians are taking to either side of these nasty debates when we all know that it will only be a matter of time before we are the conspiracy theorists. The modern world does not have a place for religion, especially not Christianity.
No one knows how to (or purposefully chooses not to) use context for quotes. Can we please stop taking things out of context?! Stop using quotes from books, social media, etc., however you like. Repeatedly over and over I watched senators take words that were spoken by the nominees, twist them, and then ask them if they’d said them, like it was some great gotcha moment. The problem? They were all out of context. RFK Jr. was asked if he’d said he was anti-vaccine when in fact he’d only said he wanted sounded science. Gabbard was accused of being pro-Snowden but she’d merely commented that the man had guts doing what he did. Patel was accused of being sympathetic to “cop beaters,” when in fact he only stated that many of the J6 arrests seemed unfair and political. When the quotes were laid out baldly without their supporting context however, they sounded really bad. If that’s all you knew or had read of these people, I’m sure they would have appeared like monsters, instead of the flawed humans they are.
That had me thinking of all my high school students I’ve taught through the years and the major issue I’ve always had with them (so much so that I now offer an online course to remedy it!) which is paraphrasing, citing, and placing quotes in their larger picture.
It’s another effect of teaching children everything about nothing. When we expect them only to find answers and fill in the blanks, we’re often pushing them for a specific answer or quote. In order to fill in the worksheet, the student isn’t looking for context anymore, just the words that are missing from the sentence. They completely miss the broader picture as they do this, and if I was ever to push back in the classroom and ask them to connect the dots, I was always met with blank stares.
The other side of this coin is that news and media no longer support finding quotes and making clear what was said in its entirety. Once upon a time, if you misquoted an interviewee, it could get you fired. Now, we see media snatch one sentence from an entire statement because it served the purposes they wanted. In other words, they reinforce what is being taught in classrooms, and are continuing the theft of context and a richer understanding of diverse topics.
We have lost the ability to allow for grace in public policy. Do we trust people to have a second chance? Do we assume that when someone says they have repented and are making strides to a better way, do we believe them? Or do we continue to judge them silently? Now, don’t get me wrong, I thin it’s fairly clear within Scriptures that Jesus says we are to be compassionate within reason. We don’t just allow the serial murderer to walk away consequence free. But when someone has made poor and ill-advised choices in their life, we can’t act like it’s a scandal simply because they’re a celebrity or politician. They are in no way on a moral pedestal based on their fame and wealth. This is what I find so repulsive about celebrity gossip magazines; we can’t and shouldn’t be shocked when famous people make famously bad choices. They’re just as human as you or I, they just happen to have a spotlight on them more regularly.
Subsequently, dragging out tales from when they were in college (looking at you, RFK Jr.’s cousin) or acting like a quote made about turning the FBI headquarters into a museum is some moral high ground lost is just drama, plain and simple. We’re all created in God’s image, and we all need a Savior, no matter how much money we bring home at night.
Overall, I was disappointed in how our elected representatives on these councils behaved in regards to their treatment of each of the candidates set before them. That disappointment extends to both sides of the aisle, as I witnessed purely spiteful statements, snubs, passive aggressive remarks, and actual shouting matches occur on live television. Each council found what they thought was the gotcha moment that would ensure the candidate before them would flounder, and honed in on it mercilessly, hounding the nominee over and over from different angles for sometimes as long as four hours. Our politicians, our senators, know better and need to start acting like the adults that they are.
I’ll end with my same statement as on Thursday; I’m not surprised by this behavior. Politicians are still sinful human beings just like you and me. To whom much is given, much is expected however, and if these men and women are to represent us well in the years to come, then it is not unacceptable for us to begin modeling for them how we want to see them behave in office.