Editorial….Outdated World Views

Editorial

Outdated World Views Still Control Some Americans

by A. Lidden “Andy” Pate, Jr

Rather surprising in our contemporary political debates is how outdated thoughts and arguments, long since discarded by enlightened adults, continue to control the minds of many of our citizens.

“Make America Great Again” was, for example, a popular theme in America in the late 1930s, championed most notably by Charles Lindbergh (the same man known for his flying abilities and the kidnapping of his son). Lindbergh’s followers were pro-Hitler and against entering into the Great War underway in Europe.

Realities intervened, as is well known, and the United States changed dramatically, uniting with its Allies to win over National Socialism and eventually over the brand of Marxism controlling the Soviet Union. Since WWII, the United States has become the World Leader and extended its influence globally, so rapidly and extensively, in fact, that our politicians continue to be befuddled by the consequences.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s. there did exist, in scary fashion we must note, the Cold War, which fostered in the United States a frequently paranoiac view of the dangers of Communism. Fortunately, the false Red scare promoted by Senator Joseph McCarthy was exposed and over time sanity was restored to our political and intellectual leadership.

But old and outdated do not die, nor just fade away. They linger, perhaps fading into the shadows for while, but always they reappear, as has happened over the past five or six years, in which we have seen the reemergence of Lindbergh’s isolationism while at the same time witnessing the rise in influence of a Christian fundamentalism that, in its most secular form, originated in the racism of the Bible Belt.

So,we hear repeatedly from spokespersons of these intellectually weak positions that they have “Absolutes” to offer. In other words, they alone know the Truth (it has been Revealed to them). And, in particular, they are supremely confident of the knowledge given to them by God Himself regarding the End Times (the Rapture).

It’s sad. And the saddest aspect of the sadness is that the people who hold to these heresies (heresies to Democracy and to Christianity) believe they are absolutely in the right, apparently unaware of their own inadequacies and shaky roots in our ever-changing world.

Their God does not love you and me nor persons who are different from them, and their God is extremely suspicious of those who are not born in the United States and practice a different religion.

To me, of such is the essence of tragedy.

                                     January 12, 2019