A society devoid of immutable Truth
By Tom Quiner
Mike Huckabee is getting hammered.
The former Arkansas Governor blamed the shootings in Connecticut on the removal of God from the public square. Detractors responded angrily, stating that the shooter was mentally ill, that God had nothing to do with it.
They are correct.
And yet, Huckabee is not incorrect.
Huckabee got into hot water with a quickie response to a questioner on television. He has back pedaled a bit and provided a more thoughtful explanation of his view of the tragedy in Connecticut:
“I’ve said some controversial things from time to time, but none which prompted such a backlash as when I stated that the horrific shooting in CT of school children and teachers couldn’t be blamed on God because we’ve systematically marginalized God out of our culture by removing Him from all aspects of the public square.”
Removing God from the public square does affect society in the view of my fellow conservatives. How could it not? On the other hand, the Connecticut situation is more complex than that. Huckabee clarified his position:
“The vicious attacks that have resulted, most of all of which are based on total ignorance of what I actually said have actually validated my point, but I’m quite certain that was not the intent of both the professional and amateur critics who have demanded everything from my being banned from ever speaking in public again, or wished me a slow and painful death.”
So, what is the point of the Left? Huckabee continues:
“On that alone, I wish to acknowledge that the left has again shown that it defines tolerance and diversity as being tolerant only of that with which it agrees, and diverse only to include slight shades of the orthodoxy of liberalism to which they adhere. They abhor censorship of their own profanity, obscenities, or graphic violence, but are the first to demand that a voice that invokes the name of God to be silenced.”
I speak from experience, the reactions from the Left can be disturbingly vicious. I can only imagine what Mr. Huckabee experiences. Nonetheless, Huckabee’s earlier comments opened the door to this gusher of negativity by not fully developing what he meant, which he has now done:
“A specific act of violence is rarely the result of a specific single act of a culture that prompts it. In other words, I would never say that simply taking prayer and Bible reading from our institutions or silencing Christmas carols is the direct cause of a mass murder. That would be ludicrous and simplistic. But the cause and effect we see in the dramatic changes of what our children are capable of is a part of a cultural shift from a God-centered culture to a self-centered culture.”
Here, Huckabee hits the nail on the head. I don’t know how many school teachers have told me they just want to teach, but that is getting more difficult because of disruptive students. These teachers, they tell me, are caught between a rock and a hard place. In other words, they are trapped between these self-centered kids and their parents who will support their children no matter what. Huckabee builds on this idea:
“We have glorified uninhibited self-expression and individualism and are shocked that we have a generation of loners.
We have insisted on a society where everyone gets a trophy and no one loses and act surprised that so many kids lack self-esteem and feel like losers.
We dismiss the notion of natural law and the notion that there are moral absolutes and seemed amazed when some kids make it their own morality to kill innocent children.
We diminish and even hold in contempt the natural family of a father and mother creating and then responsibly raising the next generation and then express dismay that kids feel no real connection to their families or even the concept of a family.
We scoff at the need for mothers and fathers to make it their priority to train their children to be strong in spirit and soul and responsible for right and wrong and exalt instead the virtue of having things and providing expensive toys, games, and electronics that substitute for parenting and then don’t understand why our kids would rather have ear buds dangling from their ears, fingers attaching to a smart phone, and face attached to a computer screen than to have an extended conversation with their family at dinner.
And we don’t teach them there is a Creator God who sets immutable rules, a God who is knowable, and to whom we are ultimately responsible. Instead we teach that God was not involved in our origins, that our very lives are biological happenstances and in fact are disposable should they be inconvenient to us, and that any outrageous behaviors are not sin, but disorders for which we should be excused and accommodated.”
It is safe to say that Mr. Huckabee’s tirade accurately reflects the divide in this country. The political right probably agrees with him. The Left thinks he nuts, which Huckabee acknowledges:
“I realize my viewpoint sounds out-dated and archaic, but when that world view was the foundation of our nation’s social contract, we got in trouble at school for talking in class, chewing gum, pulling a girl’s pigtails, or slouching in our school desks.
We took guns to school, to be sure, but they were in the gun racks of our trucks and we used them to hunt before and after school. It never occurred to us to use them to murder our teachers and fellow students.
So yes, I can stand the contempt and criticism of the left. I’ll gladly accept their scorn as they substitute creative language with a steady stream of profanity-laced tirades that I’m an idiot, a throwback to the past, and a person who should be forever silenced. But when we as a nation feared God, we didn’t fear that a 20 year old with a high powered rifle would gun down our children in their schoolrooms.”
Thank-you, Mike Huckabee, for clearly expressing the consequences to a society devoid of immutable Truth.
Yet I couldn’t help but notice that, in spite of him trying to be assertive, he fell back into the trap that we conservatives are so susceptible to – the assumption that our beliefs are the beliefs of a relatively small minority of Americans, and therefore something we must be excused for. When he says, “I realize my viewpoint sounds out-dated and archaic”, he is wavering, allowing, whether true or not, that he is probably standing by a position held by a small minority. But I think the truth is that either a very solid minority, or perhaps even a small majority of Americans agree with most of what he said. He has yielded power to the Left, when surveys seem to confirm that conservative opinions on his highlighted issues are still dominant in this country. But Left-leaning views dominate the media, so it’s easy to get the feeling that we are a voice crying in the wilderness. The only sense in which this is true is that liberals control the media — the audience for constructive conservatism is out there, but no message is getting through.
Excellent point.