I Don’t Watch Lies
Welcome to the New America. Dubbed ‘God’s Comic’ by the New Yorker, for 16-years, Brad Stine has been the comedic trailblazer of politically incorrect, Christian and Conservative comedy. His new show, ‘Brad Stine Has Issues’, covers cultural issues with his signature brand of comedic sarcasm and satire with insight that will be appreciated by everyone who loves laughter, liberty, and the freedom to tell the truth without fear.
When Barack Obama was elected President, did you think that was going to make America feel less racist and we would find more commonality now that a black man had been voted to the nation’s top office? Is that how you felt? I know I did. But, is that how things turned out?
On January 20, 2012, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President in U.S. history. Though I didn’t vote for Obama I thought the occasion was bittersweet. The reason was simple. Barack Obama’s heritage was African. The Americans that hailed from Africa have a very different experience when examining the history of this nation than Europeans. Though the beauty and power of this country is that it was built on immigration from a myriad of other people from other countries, the African experience is one in which their immigration, unlike most others, was against their will. The 300,000 plus Africans that were sold into slavery in this nation were kidnapped or captured in tribal warfare from other African people and sold as a commodity on the west coast of Africa to European slave traders who would have had no other way to acquire them except wait for other Africans to gather them for them. Why? Because of disease the Europeans were not immune to, as well as the unfamiliar treacherous terrain to find these tribes, not to mention the numbers of Africans that would clearly fight back from any white man who didn’t belong there trying to remove these people from their homeland. It literally demanded that fellow black Africans who knew the territory and had a history of conflict and slavery to be able and willing to make a profit off of their own countrymen. That bitter reality that enslaved these people is a part of African history, as well as American, whether we like it or not.
But we can’t stop there. If this country had slaves like every country before it and many countries after it, including to this very day, then what should we learn from that history that sets us apart?
Well it is really pretty simple. We need to ask ourselves some questions.1) What is worse, a person that does something bad and doesn’t care, or a person that does something bad, reevaluates it and repents and seeks to rectify it?
There is really no way to not choose the latter unless you are starting with the idea that there are people or nations on this earth that have never ever made a mistake or did something evil or immoral or egregious. If you admit that everyone is capable and has at some point done something terrible to another person then we all start in the same boat. As a matter of fact, because we all start in the same boat, we have had to leave with humanity ideas and rules that transcend our flawed nature.
We have the golden rule uttered by Jesus that states “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and “Those who are without sin, cast the first stone” or secular versions like those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. So historically we have acknowledged that we are, to use another common phrase, “only human” which literally admits that we all are intrinsically flawed and so please not judge us too harshly especially if we acknowledge our mistakes and seek to make amends.
You see that’s one of the attributes I always loved about America was it was always striving to get better than it started. The fact that slaveholders created a document at the genesis of their countries formation that literally would make it impossible for slavery to continue in that country tells you what virtue actually looks like. The founders were under no obligation to release their slaves, let alone eliminate the practice since it was a common human institution at that tim., They had all the power to maintain the status quo and were under no legal obligation to eliminate it not to mention the slaves themselves had no power whatsoever to dissent or vote themselves free. With that in mind the founders were so committed to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal that they were literally indicting themselves and forcing their ideals over their comfort and legally owned property.
By the way, isn’t that what you want in a leader, someone who doesn’t talk about morality but actually lives it?
Now true enough the founders didn’t relinquish their slaves immediately but if they had it would have actually been much worse for the slaves since they would have no way to educate themselves, care for themselves and their family and be able to quickly and easily integrate into society. An institution that was so ingrained in a culture, remember at the time of the founders it was literally unheard of to think that slavery was wrong that it was going to take a lot of time to figure out how to safely and effectively make this radical transition of granting freedom to people who had no idea how to be free. Nevertheless exactly 1807, years after the signing of the declaration of independence the transatalantic slave trade was outlawed in Britain and America. It wasn’t outlawed in other countries by the way, just ours. And then many years later, the emancipation proclamation was enacted.
So back to my bittersweet remembrance of Obama as president. The sweet came to me with the hope that Americans of African descent would feel a sense of pride as they should have to have suffered unlike any other American immigrant in regards to their inhabiting this land and having virtually zero rights to so many years later through the courage, fortitude and commitment of their heritage they overcame the impossible to become landowners, scientists, professors, senators and congressmen, judges and academics and yes, just as the American dream promised, President of the United States. Bravo to them and what a testimony to the grit and determination of a now equal group of Americans to inspire everyone around the world to what can be achieved when the human spirit is ignited.
But I also mentioned there was a bitterness to the inauguration. That was a result of the fact that Obama was a socialist and I despise socialism as the antithesis of free markets, innovation, creativity and self governance of its citizens. Little did I know that my dislike for socialism was going to somehow be conflated and interpreted as racism. Because I’m not a racist. I don’t view the world through racist eyes. Because the left sees nothing but race, it is impossible for them to see the world any other way. Because I look only for the most qualified and inspirational in my life – color is irrelevant to me since ideas don’t come in a color.
As a matter of fact for a true personal story I was educated and inspired by Thomas Sowell as one of the conservative thinkers I admired and never even knew he was black for at least five years, as I was introduced to his writings in the 80’s, so there was no internet, so as to easily get the gist of anyone anytime. So, when leftist began the tired formula of equating disagreement with his policies as actually concealed racism, I realized then and there that unless we put the brakes on this fraudulent leftist narrative of reality, it wouldn’t be long before the country would be ruled by elitist that literally created a world where whatever they believed magically became true without the annoyance of having to actually prove it so.
Thus, to slander someone’s character evolved from an immoral, uncivil, crime to instead a simple means to censor and destroy dissent before it reached the unenviable position of actually having to be contended with. Nothing can be more of a proof of the shallow, foundationless catastrophe that is socialism/communism as the fact that it thrives not by persuasion, but by never having to justify its position in the marketplace of ideas.
As I have always said, if your point of view cannot withstand intellectual scrutiny, then it is not worthy of your allegiance. That is unless thinking and submitting to reality is more abhorrent to you than speaking truth. What a tragedy that you will have wasted your life championing a fantasy because you would rather live by what you want to be true than actually what is.
That’s a lie. And no one should have to live by lies.
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