Last week, I promised to give you the answers to “why we write” in my next column. But that will have to wait until later this week, because I cannot ignore the news of the past few days. Consider the following recent headlines …
* Federal Government sues Texas over heartbeat law after law is upheld by the Supreme Court.
* Education Department opens civil rights investigations against states over school mask mandates, despite state courts upholding bans.
* Pres. Biden announces two executive orders that would force two-thirds of all working Americans to get the COVID vaccine after promising no vaccine mandates.
* And Sen. Elizabeth Warren threatens Amazon because anti-vax books are popular among their customers (more on this in a moment).
What country are we living in? Are we really prepared to allow the executive branch of the federal government to run roughshod over the other two branches as well as ALL the states? I don’t want to devolve into a civics lesson here, but checks and balances seem to have flown out the window.
The Supreme Court decides a case – we don’t like it, so we’re going to overrule you. State legislatures, governors and courts (that’s right, all three branches) agree on a policy – we don’t like it, so we’re going to overrule you. Individuals make their own decisions about their own health or simply the books they read – we don’t like it, so we are going to force you into obedience.
Meanwhile, we commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11 this week, with heartbreaking remembrances of the innocent victims and the brave first responders. We shared stories of where we were when the towers collapsed and how we came together as a nation to grieve and rebuild.
I actually question whether even a tragedy of historic magnitude would unite Americans today. Which no longer matters, because the federal government will make sure that if we don’t act, speak and think the proper way, they will shove it down our throats. River cruise to Leningrad, anyone?
As my husband often warns, there were probably plenty of normal citizens in Germany in 1936 saying privately “the folks in power seem to be headed in a bad direction.” But by the time they realized just how bad it was, they had no guns, no free press, no voice, no choice. They were just grateful not to have to wear a yellow star on their arm. The pot had boiled, and they were cooked.
Here are the stories the media was not interested in sharing with you this week:
* Larry Elder attacked by white woman wearing a gorilla mask. (Just imagine if a Trump supporter had donned a gorilla mask and attacked a black man.)
* Illegal immigrants bring surge of COVID, among other infectious diseases, into the country unchecked. (Inconveniently, vaccine policy has a head-on collision with open borders policy.)
* Taliban hunts down American allies and dictates terms to former superpower (that’s us).
And my personal favorite: Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Adam Schiff’s launch crusade against free choice and free speech. These two lions of integrity are apparently very upset that, despite the avalanche of propaganda we have endured over the COVID vaccines, Americans seem to be interested in hearing the other side. One book has sold nearly 100,000 copies!
How annoying. In fact, how dare you.
Warren and Schiff have sent a stern letter to Amazon demanding a report that explains “what the company is doing to stop its systems from recommending books and other products linked to falsehoods about the pandemic and vaccines.” Falsehoods, in this case, is anything that challenges the official narrative. What Schiff and Warren really want is to suppress any books that question universal COVID vaccination, and they are particularly annoyed that these books keep popping up as most popular under Amazon’s search.
Schiff and Warren’s tirade would be comical – but the final line of their letter is chilling:
“Given the seriousness of this issue, I ask that you perform an immediate review of Amazon’s algorithms and, within 14 days, provide both a public report on the extent to which Amazon’s algorithms are directing consumers to books and other products containing COVID19 misinformation and a plan to modify these algorithms so that they no longer do so.”
“A plan to modify these algorithms so they no longer do so.” We don’t like the facts, so please change them. We don’t like what people are choosing to read, so please bury those books so deep that no one will ever find them.
Again I ask you: what country are we living in? Maybe it’s not Nazi Germany in 1936. Maybe. But the water in the pot is heating up, and we had better jump out before it’s too late.
Write to NBC and tell them that the national anthem is for everyone — we don’t need a different one for different skin-colors. Go to your local school board meeting and tell them the history of slavery and critical race theory are NOT the same thing. While you’re at it, tell them you will sue them if they allow boys in the girls’ bathrooms. Stop sending your kids (and your money) to colleges that brainwash a generation into believing that Thomas Jefferson was a racist and our country was founded in 1619. Buy a handgun and go out to Front Sight to learn how to use it. Write to your Congressman and urge them to vote against bills that gut our economy and embolden our enemies. Better yet, host an evening at your home and invite 25 friends (or more!) to write those letters with you.
Raise your voice now, and maybe – just maybe – we can avoid having to raise an army later.