RUTHFULLY YOURS

History is not a dusty record of the past. The study of it provides a means by which we improve the future – understanding that which our forebears did well and what they did poorly. We cannot return to the past, but we should not run from it. The past helped form us, individually, as a people and as a nation.

Albert Einstein wrote about education, that it is “…the training of the mind to think.” Living in a free and democratic country, with “God-given” natural rights, it is our duty to know and understand those rights – how and why they were created – and then pass them on. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell explains his need to run: “[God] made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” We have similar obligations.

For most of his time on earth man has been ruled by men. The concept of men being governed by laws is rare and relatively new – something that is true for the United States and other democracies, an idea that can be traced to the Magna Carta. As reported by the 2016 Freedom House report, only 13% of the world’s population live in democracies. And, according to the same source, for the 10th year in a row global freedom declined. Do American high schoolers recognize the significance of that report – how fortunate they are and how fragile is liberty? In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education suggested programs to address this lack of knowledge. Yet fifteen years later test results conducted by National Assessment of Educational Progress, showed that only 13% of high school seniors were proficient in American history. H.G. Wells wrote that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. It is, if one believes that liberty is essential to a free life. Keep in mind, its loss leads to darkness and totalitarianism. A democracy functions when the electorate is educated. Authoritarianism thrives when ignorance predominates.

To understand those who came before us and to appreciate the rarity and vulnerability of our liberties, we must know something of the era in which those who formed our nation lived. That requires an understanding of the times. In applying 21st Century standards to 18th and 19th Century values, we can trivially pursue all that was wrong with those who helped mold our culture, society and country, but, in doing so we show ignorance. Looked at that way, why would we honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Elihu Yale, Leland Stanford, James Duke, Woodrow Wilson or John C. Calhoun? None of these people conformed solely to the values we cherish today, yet all of them helped provide institutions we esteem. We can fault all eight men. The first three were slave holders. Elihu Yale was an imperialist; Leland Stanford exploited Chinese workers; James Duke made his fortune in tobacco; Woodrow Wilson believed in the superiority of the White Race, and John C. Calhoun was a slave owner and defender of slave owners.
History is not a dusty record of the past. The study of it provides a means by which we improve the future – understanding that which our forebears did well and what they did poorly. We cannot return to the past, but we should not run from it. The past helped form us, individually, as a people and as a nation.

Albert Einstein wrote about education, that it is “…the training of the mind to think.” Living in a free and democratic country, with “God-given” natural rights, it is our duty to know and understand those rights – how and why they were created – and then pass them on. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell explains his need to run: “[God] made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” We have similar obligations.

For most of his time on earth man has been ruled by men. The concept of men being governed by laws is rare and relatively new – something that is true for the United States and other democracies, an idea that can be traced to the Magna Carta. As reported by the 2016 Freedom House report, only 13% of the world’s population live in democracies. And, according to the same source, for the 10th year in a row global freedom declined. Do American high schoolers recognize the significance of that report – how fortunate they are and how fragile is liberty? In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education suggested programs to address this lack of knowledge. Yet fifteen years later test results conducted by National Assessment of Educational Progress, showed that only 13% of high school seniors were proficient in American history. H.G. Wells wrote that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. It is, if one believes that liberty is essential to a free life. Keep in mind, its loss leads to darkness and totalitarianism. A democracy functions when the electorate is educated. Authoritarianism thrives when ignorance predominates.

To understand those who came before us and to appreciate the rarity and vulnerability of our liberties, we must know something of the era in which those who formed our nation lived. That requires an understanding of the times. In applying 21st Century standards to 18th and 19th Century values, we can trivially pursue all that was wrong with those who helped mold our culture, society and country, but, in doing so we show ignorance. Looked at that way, why would we honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Elihu Yale, Leland Stanford, James Duke, Woodrow Wilson or John C. Calhoun? None of these people conformed solely to the values we cherish today, yet all of them helped provide institutions we esteem. We can fault all eight men. The first three were slave holders. Elihu Yale was an imperialist; Leland Stanford exploited Chinese workers; James Duke made his fortune in tobacco; Woodrow Wilson believed in the superiority of the White Race, and John C. Calhoun was a slave owner and defender of slave owners.

Obama’s ransom payment to Iran out-lies Hillary and even his own Obamacare mendacity.

We have become wearily accustomed to the constant flow of lies in the presidential campaign. Some are important but most are not. They have become a tiresome reminder of why so many people have decided to ignore the whole mess.

Lies in a political campaign should matter but those lies that are the basis for national security decisions — lies that are a matter of policy — can create existential dangers. The lies that President Obama has been peddling surrounding his deal with Iran on nuclear weapons are just such a case.

The website PolitiFact has gotten into the habit of naming the Lie of the Year. In 2012, when it gave the shameful title to Obama’s statement on Obamacare that “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it,” the label was almost enough to rouse the Republican Party to action.

I began to be hopeful on July 5 when FBI Director James Comey held a press conference to recite the elements of Title 18 US Code Section 793(f) as those committed by Hillary Clinton by using a private, unsecured email system (“Clinton.com”) for top secret matters while she was secretary of state. But when Comey discredited himself and the FBI by saying no reasonable prosecutor would charge her with the crime, I thought we had a winner for Lie of the Year.

Comey didn’t distinguish himself by later describing an FBI interview with Clinton. But then Mizz Clinton told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that FBI Director Jay Comey said she’d been truthful in answering the FBI’s questions. Even the Washington Post’s fact checkers gave her their lowest rating — four “Pinocchio’s” — for that one. Another entry in the contest.

But the lies surrounding Obama’s Iran deal are so deadly, so obvious, and so much a part of his Iran policy that we must remind ourselves of them, expose them and examine them at every opportunity.

Four Americans were hostages. Some had been brought up on bogus charges of espionage, but none were held for any legitimate reason. When it was first revealed that there had been a payment of $400 million in cash to Iran at the same time the hostages were released, Obama denied that the payment was ransom. He said, “We were completely open with everybody about it, and it’s interesting to me that this suddenly became a story again. We do not pay ransom for hostages.”

Obama’s statement quickly overcame Hillary Clinton’s entries in the Lie of the Year contest, but Obama stuck to his story.

(Let’s be mindful of what a ransom is. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “ransom” as “to redeem from captivity or punishment; to procure the release of (a person) or restoration of (a thing) by payment of the sum demanded.”)