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BY KASEY LEANDER/BREAKPOINT.ORG
APRIL 26, 2022

America's teens are not all right. As Derek Thompson recently wrote in an Atlantic article entitled "Why American Teens are So Sad,"

From 2009-2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness" rose from 26 percent to 44 percent. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. [Almost] every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it's happening all across the country.

What Thompson is describing goes far beyond typical adolescent angst. In fact, according to the National Institute of Health, other risky behaviors traditionally chalked up to adolescence--such as drinking and driving, fighting at school, and even underage sex--are significantly down.

Nor can these declines in mental health be blamed on the pandemic or lockdowns. Rather, these were "pre-existing conditions" that, though certainly aggravated, were not caused by the social chaos of the last two years.

Thompson suggests four converging cultural realities that are contributing to this crisis: social media, social isolation, the extra-stressful global situation, and today's parenting styles.

Over a decade ago, psychologist Jean Twenge warned about the effect of smartphones on teenage brains. Since then, the prevalence of social media has
unleashed new levels of comparison, exposure, and image problems on a demographic already wired to care too much about what their peers think. Instagram's own research found that while a third of teenage girls say the app "makes them feel worse," they cannot keep from logging on.

Even so, writes Thompson,

The biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s, today's teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver's license, or play youth sports.

And, of course, it also matters what teens are encountering on the screens that are such a big part of their lives. Even more than TV or print media, phones bombard teens with 24/7 coverage of the world's problems, creating a near-constant sense of fear and foreboding. These days, teens deal with more than just the stress of preparing for college. Alone in their rooms, they are worrying about the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and whether they have been sufficiently "woke" on various issues.

In response to all of the social chaos, many parents are choosing what Thompson calls an "accommodative" parenting style. It is very tempting for parents, instead of letting teens experience life's normal bumps and bruises, to insulate them: "If a girl is afraid of dogs, an 'accommodation' would be keeping her away from every friend's house with a dog, or if a boy won't eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years" (which, he points out, is a true story).

That strategy, sometimes called "lawnmower parenting," ultimately backfires. When every challenge on the path is mowed down, a child struggles to develop the resiliency necessary to confront the inevitable obstacles ahead. In the end, a world cannot be prepared for a child. A child needs to be prepared for the world. 

Every factor that Thompson identifies certainly contributes to the current mental health crisis among teens. However, there is more to consider.

In his book, The Content Trap, Bharat Anand tells the story of the 1988 Yellowstone fire, infamously started by a single unextinguished cigarette. But Anand asks a critical question: Why that cigarette? After all, hundreds of cigarettes are dropped in Yellowstone every year. What was different this time? The answer, he argues, is not found by focusing on the spark--but the environmental factors that turned Yellowstone into a tinderbox. The extremely dry summer of 1988, the driest on record, combined with the park's controlled burn policy meant, as one former park superintendent put it, "We were a perfect setup to burn."

Social media, parenting strategies, and world events are definite sparks for a mental health crisis (as are others such as the breakdown of the family and increased availability of substances to abuse), but it's the prevalent cultural worldview that makes devastating cultural wildfires inevitable.

Our real cultural crisis is a catastrophic, culture-wide loss of meaning. Philosophers warned it was coming, as did social scientists, and now we are living with the existential results of a culture untethered from God, and therefore untethered from any fixed reference point for truth, morality, identity, and meaning. It is a tinderbox in which any spark, whether social media or addiction or lockdowns or something else, is destined to explode.

It is also a tinderbox primed for a different kind of spark, one which can point people again to the God Who infused His world with meaning. This spark is Christ-changed people, shaped by redemption, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and armed with the truth and love about life, the world, and what it all means.

Originally published at Breakpoint.org - reposted with permission.

https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5327

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CP U.S. | SATURDAY, JULY 02, 2022
By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor

Seattle police arrested a street preacher on charges of being a risk to public safety for reading his Bible aloud at a public park near an LGBT pride event.

Matthew Meinecke, who identifies himself as The Seattle Preacher on Twitter, was surrounded by Seattle police officers as he was reading his Bible and was subsequently arrested and fingerprinted at a police station before being released.

“SPD has enough resources to send 10 police officers to arrest a preacher reading his Bible in a public park. Because it's such a horrible crime now!” Meinecke wrote on Twitter, posting a video showing his arrest.

“So at this point, we can no longer stand by. The risk that you pose for public safety by remaining here can be mitigated if you leave. It’s your last chance,” a police officer can be heard saying.

The preacher told the officers, “I don’t want to leave because I’m not in danger.”

“I was at the Seattle Center, reading the Bible, not aggressively preaching, not stirring people up, not anything. People throwing things.

People vandalizing our property. I think about 10 police officers showed up," the pastor told journalist Jonathan Choe with the Discovery
Your job is not to silence me and move me. Why are they so offended by words? I just believe in using the word of God.”

The preacher also posted a video showing a protester seizing his Bibles and ripping pages while shouting, “Get the f--- out of here! Get your holy water off my ovaries, b----! Get the f--- out!”

Another person shouted at him, saying, “Forget about your imaginary fairy in the f---ing sky.”

Meinecke said he saw “a bunch of naked people walking around over here, not even 200 feet away. … Naked grown men around little children.”

Last weekend, Meinecke was also arrested during a Roe v. Wade protest, Choe added on Twitter. “Far-left extremists ripped up his Bible and assaulted him. But they got away.”

In a video Meinecke shared online, he added: “We’ve got a city full of crime. We’ve got needles all over the place. Lawless homeless camps everywhere. We’ve got assaults. We’ve got broken glass. We’ve got Antifa running the place. But they’ve got time to send in 10 police officers to arrest a street preacher reading his Bible in a park.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/seattle-police-arrest-street-preacher-reading-the-bible.html

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The Telegraph
Sarah Knapton
May 3, 2022·3 min read

The Fermi paradox questions why aliens have never visited Earth despite the Universe being so old and so vast that races should have evolved interstellar travel and come calling by now.

Now two scientists believe they may have the answer.

Astrobiologists Dr Michael Wong, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, and Dr Stuart Bartlett, of California Institute of Technology, have hypothesized that civilizations burn out when they grow too large and technical.

Faced with an ever-growing population and eye-watering energy consumption, worlds hit a crisis point known as a "singularity" where innovation can no longer keep up with demand.

The only alternative to collapse is to abandon "unyielding growth" and adopt a balance that allows survival but prevents the society moving any further forward, or venturing far from its own spot in the universe.

Writing in the Royal Society Open Science, Dr Wong and Dr Bartlett said: “We propose a new resolution to the Fermi paradox: civilizations either collapse from burnout or redirect themselves to prioritizing homeostasis, a state where cosmic expansion is no longer a goal, making them difficult to detect remotely.

“Either outcome — homeostatic awakening or civilization collapse — would be consistent with the observed absence of (galactic-wide) civilizations.”

Large civilizations reach crisis points

The pair argue that the general principles of life are universal and that although the emergence and evolution of life on other planets remains speculative, it may be inevitable.

Once on the path, life is likely to follow a similar trajectory to the civilizations of Earth, they claim, eventually organizing into a globally connected state, with technology that needs increasing amounts of energy to maintain growth.

Using city growth equations, which sets limits on how far societies can scale up, the experts show how large civilizations eventually hit crisis points, which, once recognized, causes a halt in further growth.

The pair point to similar ‘mini-awakenings’ on Earth which have prevented global crises, such as the de-escalation of weapons of mass destruction since the Cold War, and the ban on Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to mend the hole in the ozone layer.

However alien civilizations which are close to burnout may be the most easy to detect, according to the research, because they would be using energy in a ‘wildly sustainable manner’ which would provide a good signal emanating from their world.

“This presents the possibility that a good many of humanity’s initial detections of extraterrestrial life may be of the intelligent, though not yet wise, kind,” they conclude.

Previous explanations

Previous suggestions for why intelligent aliens have not already visited Earth, include the discovery of a physical difficulty which makes space travel infeasible, whether related to astronomy, biology or engineering.

Some scientists have suggested that aliens have simply never chosen to visit us, or if they have we have not noticed, perhaps arriving before humans had evolved.

It is also possible that advanced civilizations arose too recently, and too far away, for aliens to have reached us yet.

In 2015, scientists analyzing data from the Hubble and Kepler space telescopes concluded that around 92 per cent of potentially habitable worlds did not exist when Earth formed, so it may be that our Solar System is simply ahead of the game.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/revealed-why-aliens-haven-t-175238797.html

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CP CHURCH & MINISTRIES | SATURDAY, MAY 07, 2022
By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor

A staggering 107 United Methodist congregations based in Florida plan to leave the mainline denomination for the newly launched conservative Global Methodist Church.

The Florida chapter of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a theologically conservative Methodist group, announced Tuesday that 107 churches in the state had “chosen to initiate the process to depart the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.”

The number of congregations planning to leave represents nearly 20% of the total number of churches belonging to the UMC Florida Conference, according to WCA.

“This broad group of churches include both large and small congregations along with Anglo, African American, Latino, Korean, and other ethnic communities of faith. These churches will align with the new Global Methodist Church,” stated the WCA chapter.

Keith Boyette, a leader in the WCA who served as a Transitional Connectional Coordinating Officer for the Global Methodist Church, told The Christian Post that he believes “there will be additional churches that will emerge as we move forward.”

“It is my understanding that all of these churches have taken votes to leave,” Boyette said when asked how firm the congregations were in leaving the UMC.

“The Transitional Leadership Council of the GMC will organize local churches like the 107 from Florida into regional conferences. The regional conferences are called annual conferences.”

Meant to serve as a conservative alternative for the UMC, the Global Methodist Church was originally planning to launch after General Conference, which had been slated to take place this fall.

However, the GMC opted to launch this month after UMC leadership announced that the General Conference would be postponed until 2024 due to ongoing pandemic concerns.

Boyette told CP that he anticipates the departing congregations will face early challenges, contending that the Florida Conference “is certainly not an ‘easy’ conference” for a congregation to disaffiliate from.

CP reached out to the Florida Conference to get a response to this development and to confirm that 107 congregations had begun a formal disaffiliation process. However, the regional body did not respond by press time.

For decades, the UMC has been debating whether to change its official stance labeling homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

This stance includes banning the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and barring clergy from blessing same-sex marriages.

Although the stance has survived numerous attempts to change it, theological liberals have continued to resist the Book of Discipline's rules and refused to enforce them in some instances.

In January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns began, a theologically diverse group of UMC leaders announced a proposal to have the UMC fund the creation of a new Methodist denomination that conservative churches could join.

Known as the “Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation,” the proposal would have allocated $25 million to create the new denomination, but it had to be passed at General Conference first.

Although three annual conferences had voted to send the Protocol to General Conference for consideration in early 2020, the pandemic prompted UMC leaders to postpone the General Conference multiple times.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/107-florida-churches-leaving-umc-over-lgbt-debate-report.html

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CP POLITICS | FRIDAY, JULY 01, 2022
By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen, prosecuted for voicing her traditional Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality, believes that a "heavy hatred for Christian values" in Western society will cause many Christians to censor themselves for social acceptance.

The former interior minister who has served in Finnish Parliament for nearly three decades was one of several global political figures to speak at the annual International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., this week.

The event aims to increase "the public awareness and political strength for the international religious freedom movement. The summit is led by former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, who led similar events at the State Department headquarters during the Trump administration.

In March, Räsänen was cleared of hate speech charges for repeatedly asserting her belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. But her legal battle continues as the prosecution has appealed the ruling to a higher court.

She spoke with The Christian Post ahead of her participation in a panel discussion at the summit focused on religious freedom in the Western Hemisphere Thursday.

As she faced a possibility of up to six years imprisonment, the 62-year-old politician attributed her prosecution to Finland becoming a "post-Christian world" where "Christian values are, in fact, a minority."

"The change has been so fast that it is difficult to understand what is happening," She said.

As the wife of a Lutheran pastor and former chair of Finnish Christian Democrats, Räsänen believes Christian values are "targeted" in criminal court as part of the "breaking of the virtue and the challenging of Christian values" that is now "very visible in our societies."

In Räsänen's case, she faced hate speech charges over a book she wrote 18 years ago titled Male and Female He Created Them:

Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity and a 2019 tweet taking issue with the Finnish Lutheran Church's promotion of LGBT "pride month." She faced a third charge for comments she made on a radio show about homosexuality.

Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland was charged with hate speech for publishing Räsänen's book.

Räsänen insists that she has no ill will toward homosexuals and suggested that those accusing her of practicing hate speech are the ones dabbling in hatred.

"We all are sinners and we need Jesus. But now, I think there is a heavy hatred against Christian values in our society," Räsänen said. "If you speak about gender issues — that there are two genders or that marriage belongs to one woman and one man — it arouses hatred against you in our society."

Räsänen told CP that she "never thought" she would face prosecution for expressing support for "classical Christian doctrines about marriage and sexuality" as she openly discussed her "Christian values" and beliefs about "marriage and sanctity of human life" throughout her time in Parliament.

"Nothing has changed in my faith and in my conviction, but suddenly I was like a criminal because of this hate," she said.

"The world has changed," she concluded. "I think that my conviction has not changed but the world has changed very [quickly] in Finland and I think that also in other Western countries, post-Christian countries."

Describing the cultural shift as "very alarming," Räsänen believes Christians must "wake up to see what is going on" because her experience proves that "it is more and more difficult" for Christians to express their faith publicly.

"I'm afraid that this leads to some kind of self-censorship. If you are labeled a conservative Christian, it would hinder your career or your social acceptance," she stated. "So, these kinds of problems are very topical in Finnish society."

Although she "hoped that the prosecutor would have been satisfied with the acquittal," she sees her case moving to a higher court as an opportunity "to get a precedent and to get a more heavy guideline for possible further similar cases in Finland and also in Europe."

She praised her acquittal of hate crime charges by a Helsinki District Court as "a victory for me." Still, She said a "possible victory from Appeal Court and especially from Supreme Court" is an "even bigger victory for freedom of speech ... and freedom of religion" because it would create "legal guidance for other cases."

"I think that this is all in God's hands, and I believe in His guidance that there is some meaning that this process continues," she added.

Räsänen said the ordeal and her platform with the Finnish media provided an opportunity to "hold up the biblical values in public and also testify about Jesus" and give people "the answer to the problem of sin that Jesus has died for all people and that this is the way to salvation."

Although Finland has a Constitution that "guarantees the freedom of speech and freedom of religion," Räsänen is concerned that "the influence of LGBT ideology is very strong in Finnish society and some kind of woke culture is creating cancel culture in our society and it is narrowing those freedoms."

Räsänen lamented, "we have now some kind of totalitarian, ideological totalitarianism." She cited efforts to convince social media companies to censor "hate speech" in the Finnish Parliament and the European Union as examples of this ideology's emergence.

Räsänen hopes that her remarks at the IRF Summit will "encourage people to use their rights and speak openly,"

"At first, when the trial in January started, [the] prosecutor said that this will not be about [the] Bible," Räsänen recalled. "She started to ask questions about [the] Bible, about theological issues, she even cited some verses from the Old Testament, and she wanted to show that there is a lot of hate speech in [the] Bible."

Räsänen maintained that the prosecutor classified the Christian doctrine of "love the sinner, hate the sin" as "insulting and defaming" because "according to her, you cannot make a distinction between the person's identity and his actions, so if you condemn the act, you also condemn the human being and regard him inferior."

She pushed back on this analysis, classifying the idea of "loving the sinner" and "hating the sin" as "the core of Christianity and the message of the Bible."

"If this is denied, if this kind of speech and teaching is denied, then also the core of Christianity is dead," she contended.

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/finnish-mp-paivi-rasanen-decries-heavy-hatred-for-christian-values-in-the-west.html

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John Haltiwanger
August 14, 2022·7 min read

In the wake of an FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, some far-right figures have been spreading violent rhetoric online — including calls for war.

The Republican party has long portrayed itself as the defender of "law and order," but the aftermath of the raid has seen GOP lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene call for defunding the FBI.

Greene has also made references to "civil war" on social media as her Republican colleagues compare the FBI to the Gestapo and depict the raid as the sort of thing that only occurs in "third world" countries. A spokesperson for the Georgia Republican maintains that one of Greene's tweets mentioning civil war was in reference to infighting or a "war of ideas" in the GOP. In another tweet, Greene referred to the FBI raid as the type of thing that happens "in countries during civil war."

Meanwhile, pro-Trump internet channels have seen a spike in talk of civil war since the raid.

The FBI raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago home came at a historically divisive time for the US, one in which millions of voters continue to believe the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.

Such erroneous claims were at the heart of what catalyzed the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol last year, and historians and experts on democracy warn that these lies continue to foster the potential for further violence. They also say that if the US did see civil war, it wouldn't look like the first one.

Fiona Hill, who served as the leading Russia expert on the National Security Council during the Trump administration, said in a conversation with Insider last month that the distrust in the electoral process and government institutions fomented by Trump and his GOP allies has created a "recipe for communal violence." Hill warned the US could ultimately "end up in a civil conflict."

The country is at a point in which "trust in the different communities and authorities" has eroded "to such an extent that people just start fighting with each other," Hill said.

But she also underscored that a civil conflict in the present day would be unlikely to look like the American Civil War, an extraordinarily bloody fight between the Union and Confederacy that left an estimated 618,000 to 750,000 Americans dead.

"I don't think we'd end up in the kind of conflict that we had between the states — the Union and the Confederacy — back in the day," Hill said. "But people's sense of the civil and civic ways of resolving disputes are out the window."

Less than a week after the raid on Trump's home, an armed man attempted to break into the FBI field office in Cincinnati. Authorities have not announced a motive but are reportedly investigating whether the man — who was ultimately killed by police — had ties to far right extremism.

The suspected gunman, Ricky Shiffer, appears to have posted calls for war and violence against the FBI on Trump's social media network Truth Social.

"If you don't hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I.," one post read. The account with Shiffer's name repeatedly parroted Trump's election lies, per CNN, and multiple reports also suggest that the suspect may have been at the Capitol on January 6.

'All of the warning signs for civil war have emerged'

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who specializes in political violence, warned in an April op-ed for the New Republic that over the past six years "all of the warning signs for civil war have emerged in the United States, and they have emerged at a surprisingly fast rate."

Walter, who has done extensive research on civil wars, expanded on this in an interview with The Washington Post last month. Like other scholars looking at these issues, Walter said the US isn't heading toward a conflict akin to the fight between the North and South.

"When people think about civil war, they think about the first civil war. And in their mind, that's what a second one would look like. And, of course, that's not the case at all," Walter told the Post. "What we're heading toward is an insurgency, which is a form of a civil war. That is the 21st-century version of a civil war, especially in countries with powerful governments and powerful militaries, which is what the United States is."

Walter went on to say that an insurgency is "more decentralized" and tends to be a fight between multiple groups. "They use unconventional tactics. They target infrastructure. They target civilians. They use domestic terror and guerrilla warfare. Hit-and-run raids and bombs," she said.

Right-wing extremists have been known to look to "The Turner Diaries," a novel that's been referred to as the bible of the far right, for a blueprint on how to take down a powerful government like the US, Walter said. The book, which is revered by white nationalist groups, tells the fictional tale of a civil war against the US government.

"One of the things it says is, Do not engage the U.S. military. You know, avoid it at all costs. Go directly to targets around the country that are difficult to defend and disperse yourselves so it's hard for the government to identify you and infiltrate you and eliminate you entirely," Walter told the Post.

Research shows that terrorists like the Oklahoma City bomber have been inspired by "The Turner Diaries."

During a recent meeting at the White House, a group of historians warned President Joe Biden that the US is facing threats not unlike those the country saw in the pre-Civil War period, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Historian Michael Beschloss, who has made the case that US democracy is in existential danger, was reportedly among the academics who spoke to Biden. Though he's sounding the alarm about the threats America's democracy is facing at present, Beschloss also says that a civil conflict in the US would be unlikely to resemble the devastating war of the 1860s.

Beschloss said in a social media post on Thursday that "if any kind of civil war faces Americans (may God forbid), it is unlikely to be two armies fighting over one paramount issue (slavery), as in 1861-1865, but sporadic, mounting bursts of violence against our federal government as it tries to enforce rule of law."

'There is a real threat of civil conflict'

Nina Silber, a Boston University historian and expert on the US Civil War, told Insider that discussions of civil war have been a right wing talking point "for some time now" and "it reflects a kind of extremist mentality that goes along with the idea of 'taking back the country from radical, left wing Democrats.'"

Silber said that "the more this chatter gets normalized, the more it also makes violent behavior seem normal or even inevitable."

"There is a real threat of civil conflict," she said, "Not just because of the talk of violence but also because of the increasing numbers of people who are armed and ready to use weapons to advance certain political goals."

But Silber explained that such a conflict "would not be a repeat of what happened in the US in the 1860s given the stark geographic split the country faced in 1861 between states where slavery was legal and states where it was not."

There are "some geographic divisions" in the US at present but it's not a North versus South divide like it was in the 1860s, Silber said, adding that there are instead "plenty of divisions" within various states such as urban versus rural — particularly in the "purple" states. She said that this could "manifest itself as pockets of violence in parts of the country."

Update: This article was updated to include additional expert commentary received after publication.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/far-calling-civil-war-fbi-110000282.html

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Kansas City Star

May 8, 2022

Trust undermined

The lies before the U.S. Senate from three Supreme Court justices during their confirmation hearings, leading to a likely decision fundamentally altering life in the United States, should compel the American Bar Association to demand their immediate resignations. The justices’ deceit in the face of direct questioning has undermined the justice system for which the ABA stands.

The corruption of the nation’s highest court cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Every ABA member who respects the integrity of his or her profession, regardless of political persuasion or religious affiliation, should immediately demand the ABA protest this egregious attack on American jurisprudence.

If future Supreme Court justices cannot be held accountable for their sworn testimony, then oaths in court mean nothing. Our legal system is being challenged by the very justices sworn to uphold its integrity.

- Rabbi Mark H. Levin, Prairie Village

Work for us

I live and vote in Wyandotte County. My goodness, Mayor Tyrone Garner, get a grip. (May 6, 7A, “Wyandotte County needs Garner to stay in the room”)

Wyandotte County’s commissioners are not your adversaries. They are, along with you, the city and county’s leadership team. Each seems to believe it is in my best interest as their constituent to conduct a nationwide search to find our city manager. This routine practice gives my elected representatives the chance to choose the best candidate to manage my city and county. Why in the world do you object?

- Stephanie Reynolds, Kansas City, Kansas

KCK’s needs

It seems we in Kansas City, Kansas, elected the wrong person for mayor. Mayor Tyrone Garner’s latest tantrum at the commission meeting is yet another example of his poor decision-making. Soon after taking office, he bought an expensive SUV — and to make matters worse, he bought it out of state. Returning it does not change his original decision.

The mayor’s reluctance to let the county commission look for candidates for administrator is an affront to open politics. The people have the right to identify the best person for the job, not someone given the position without vetting.

We in KCK need a leader with some forward thinking and the ability to make rational decisions and not throw tantrums when things don’t go his way.

- Ernest Dibal, Kansas City, Kansas

Two breaches

Sen. Josh Hawley, I too find it very disconcerting that one of the three cornerstones of our democracy, the Supreme Court, has been breached and the highest court in the land has been compromised. (April 5, 4A, “Hawley tries to keep focus on leak, not Supreme Court draft”)

However, Senator, I am confused as to why you were not outraged and proactive about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurgency against our Congress, another cornerstone of our democracy. Please explain the disparity of your responses to these unconscionable attacks on our country and Constitution.

- Andy Hickerson, Leawood

Rethink ‘pro-life’

I am an old white guy, a member of the demographic that likes to make all the rules that my group expects you to live by. I have been thinking a lot lately about abortion and the right to life. I am a proud pro-lifer — anti-abortion, pro-affordable or free health care for all and against capital punishment.

It seems that many individuals in my demographic are excited about the possibility of punishing women who make the difficult and personal decision to have an abortion. I might be persuaded to adopt that approach if the father of that child is also prosecuted. There would be no need for an abortion if it wasn’t for the father. If I drove a person to a destination where I knew there was a potential for a crime, wouldn’t I also be held responsible?

Many in my group, especially those we elect, would say that my ideas are outrageous. It is easy to be pro-life when you experience none of the consequences. It also makes for good talking points.

I challenge all our elected representatives to adopt this thinking. If you really are pro-life, prove it.

- Dale Knowlton, Lee’s Summit

In the plan

Planned Parenthood helps us celebrate Mother’s Day.

- Nancy Hatch, Kansas City

Bring justice

As Catholic sisters, registered Democratic voters in Kansas and members of Network, we urge the U.S. Senate to bring to the floor for a vote the EQUAL Act, S.79.

This bill would eliminate the disproportionate sentencing for crack and powder cocaine and the disparity between Black and white people in sentencing. Justice is needed.

We are grateful that Republican Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Roy Blunt of Missouri have co-sponsored the EQUAL Act and urge GOP Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri to do the same. Bipartisanship is possible.

- Sister Angela Fitzpatrick and Sister Michele Morek, Roeland Park

Royal pains

https://www.yahoo.com/news/legal-profession-t-let-supreme-100000212.html

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Taylor Harris
TIME
Sat, July 2, 2022 at 7:00 AM·6 min read

For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt a stifling expectation, an understood command to believe that America is great. If I could not see this nation as great, then I must be a disgruntled traitor. If I could not see America’s remarkable progress—how it eventually fixed its mistake of enslaving others; how it bent over backward to consider race in college admissions—I must be a spoiled cynic.

In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin described the “chorus of the innocents,” those who’d respond to claims of racism by screaming, “How bitter you are!” and “You exaggerate!” My personal chorus, beginning in adolescence with some of my white peers and supported by whitewashed history books, exclaimed: Look how far we’ve come. At least you’re not in [insert a developing country]. There is no country like ours.

This Independence Day, it’s that last line I believe.

I have neither the space in this article nor energy in my soul to list every reason why we are exceptional, nor could I—for there will be new examples and reasons tomorrow or the next day. (This is the crux of the problem.) You cannot rank the reasons, either. There is no “most important” when you consider, in a country where “all men are created equal,” hate crimes against Asian-Americans, bans that erase words from our libraries and lexicons, and Black maternal mortality rates that will surely get worse now that five Supreme Court Justices have told us that bodily autonomy is not actually a right. There are only layers of injustice, folded into our systems of health care and housing, even into our Constitution, a document held in the highest regard, as though it never counted my people as fractions or had to be amended. You cannot prioritize the ways in which so many of us are rendered expendable. For, look, a new tragedy arises, and—whether it shocks you or not—threatens to sink your whole heart in one second.

As a nation, we are both unstoppable and too prideful to stop ourselves. We are slow to turn away from sin; refusing to trade in guns or privilege or freedom; unable to admit that perhaps we are not great and never have been.

In May, we were all given 10 days. After a white supremacist drove out of his way to target and gun down Black shoppers in Buffalo, N.Y., I had 10 days to step into a grocery store, breathe deeply by the bins of watermelons and bell peppers, and tell myself, “I cannot avoid every store.” Ten days to selfishly wonder if living in a white college town would protect—or expose—my family. Those of us fortunate to still be alive could listen to podcasts on the great replacement theory and pretend that identifying its roots might help us root it out, or at least keep an eye on it. (Tragically, we’d soon learn too much about the difference between eliminating a threat versus monitoring it from outside.)

We had 10 days to imagine a church mother buying fresh rolls or apples and read that she fed others on Saturdays, our elder queen breaking bread in the middle of a food desert, much like her Lord. For 10 days, we could retroactively rewrite the victims’ stories, plan a day wherein they decided the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store was too far out of the way, not worth their time, the butter or potatoes on their shopping list could wait. What a terrible use of our imaginations.

As a nation, we may consider repair, but repentance means to “turn away.” And why would white conservatives turn away from their power and freedom and privilege? There is no rational reason for them to let go; it would have to be spiritual, moral, ethical—a space reserved for tired arguments about abortion or critical race theory, a concept none of them can accurately define.

So within 10 days of the tragedy in Buffalo, children on the edge of summer in Uvalde, Texas, hid and called 911 and waited and bled out, while law enforcement kept watch outside their classrooms. Two teachers who’d cared for them died as well.

What would it cost us to concede that we are not great?

As a mother, and as a mother of Black children, one statistic runs on a continual loop in my mind now: Guns are the leading cause of death for children in this country. It’s inconceivable that we haven’t stopped everything, made the sun and moon stand still, until this is untrue. Instead, we will temporarily lower flags to half-staff after mass shootings, while a man lowering his body to one knee in protest permanently loses his job. If we will not ban assault rifles, and if our song, penned by a slaveholder, is too precious to withstand a knee, then can we at least fly every flag at half-mast until the mass shootings stop?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, until the massacre in Uvalde, my brightest idea to protect my kids was to buy them each a phone. That is not rational; it is a mother’s tired plea.

You might tell me change is coming, and I won’t hold that against you. President Biden signed the first major federal gun-safety law in decades, and if that deal saves a life, Amen. But it’s clear this legislation is less than we need. It’s a small step forward that doesn’t really address the heart of the matter—that certain people’s freedom matters more than others’ in this country. If this weren’t so, the NRA would have spoken up after the police killing of Philando Castile, a Black man who had
a permit to carry a gun. How do I teach my children to celebrate a small “victory” when so much more could be done right now to protect them? So much more has been done in other countries. Do we give thanks for the slim possibility that this deal will prevent future massacres?

Though he warned against it, I listen to Baldwin’s words. “Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience,” he wrote to his nephew. My experience tells me America, above all, is exceptional in its commitment to gaslighting. A country willing to violate or exploit those at the margins, cast some to the shadows, take away a long-established right and call others into question, all under the banner of equality and democracy. Any country with a record like ours should dream first of becoming decent, rather than insisting on its own greatness.

But if some must continue with parades and flag-waving, with understanding AR-15s as the “full armor of God,” then perhaps we can at least agree to answer one question directly, before we light the grill and stock the coolers. Can we agree, whether kneeling or standing with hand over heart, to consider: Who among us is safe? And if we grasp, even for a moment, the true horror or depth of that answer, the way it exposes a darkness we’d rather unsee, let us remember what Scripture says about the man who looked in the mirror and then walked away, immediately forgetting the shape of his face. That man was called neither blessed nor great. He appears in the text as a warning, a stark reminder of what happens when we know the truth and do nothing about it.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-insists-great-being-decent-110055652.html