The title quotes 1 Thessalonians 5:21, but it seems so apt after Thursday’s show.  That show featured interviews and clips of remarkable depth and insight.  Let’s examine.

Firstly, the host during the second hour played, twice, a clip of Justice Clarence Thomas speaking at the University of Texas kicking off celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Here is the full lecture.  The clip played on the show begins about 41:45 in until 42:32 and contrasts the Founders in the Declaration stating that our rights come from the Creator and progressivism which holds rights are given by government.  Justice Thomas declares that these two viewpoints cannot coexists forever.  The entire speech is a love letter to the Declaration and to the country.  It clocks in at about an hour and is worth every second of that time.  I urge you; I urge everyone, to listen to all of it.

Justice Thomas speaks a great deal about “devotion” and “spirit.”  That there is more than words, so readily manipulated, at play in a document like the Declaration.  We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Also Thursday the host interviewed Haviv Rettig Gur.  The interview consumed the entire third hour of the show and was fascinating.  But I was particularly interested in the section beginning about 7:48 to around 14:45 in which Gur discusses dictatorships and their ultimate dysfunction.  In it Gur notes that they are really only good at destruction – they do not build or create, they can, ultimately only destroy.

Which brings me back to manipulating words.  “Deconstructionism” is quite popular these days.  Defined, “a post-structuralist theory introduced by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s that challenges the idea of fixed, objective meaning in language and text. It operates by dismantling binary oppositions (e.g., speech/writing, true/false) to reveal that texts contain internal contradictions, rendering meaning fluid and dependent on context rather than authorial intent.”  Put simply – make the words someone wrote mean what you want, not what the person that wrote them wanted.

And thus deconstructionism, by its very name destructive in nature, is a tool of progressivism and could ultimately lead to dictatorship.

This is why Justice Thomas speaks of “devotion” and “spirit.”  Our commitment is not to words, but to the principles and ideas those words represent.  We must seek to preserve those principles with devotion and in high spirits.  Intellectual activity is necessary to maintaining our nation, but it is insufficient, we need that devotion – we need that spirit.

I was not quite 20 years old for the Bicentennial, but I remember it so well here at almost 69.  The nation buzzed.  So many of the downtown street festivals that now litter summer calendars in small and medium sized cites started with the celebrations of this nation’s 200th.  It was remarkably exciting and inescapable.  Every product marketed in some celebratory fashion, everywhere festooned with bunting and flags – and not just for a week, but for several months preceding.

Justice Thomas is right – that buzz is not present for this our 250th.  But we need to recapture it – too much is at stake.

And now the pile:

Maybe teaching deconstructionism has some thing to do with it?

Unfortunately, if words have no meaning, facts soon follow.  And so scare tactics and politics replace science – hence covid.

Cheating to get on the best-seller lists soon follows.

The problem with cheating, is that those helping you cheat can turn on you in a hurry.

Gibb’s Rule #39 – There is no such thing as a coincidence.

Remember the other day when we noted that Los Angeles can’t quite figure out it is its own worst enemy given the fact that its quality of life is the lowest ever?  The PCUSA may have the same problem.

When it comes to the whole feud between the Pope and the President, just who is manipulating what to what end is a heck of a question.