THE FACE OF TRUTH? or THE FACE OF EVIL?

A  new HuffPost/YouGov poll, asked Democrats and Republicans about their opinions on a range of political proposals (universal healthcare, the Iran nuclear deal, affirmative action, etc.).  Half of the time the researchers said that the proposals came from Democrats (President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and/or John Kerry).  The other half they said the same ideas came from Republican Donald Trump.  The poll found that people’s positions on important political issues were more influenced by whom they thought the idea came from than by what the idea actually was.    (Read more here on the Huffington Post website.)

One of the poll items asked people if they supported or wanted to repeal the 1975 Public Affairs Act.  Republicans were more likely to support the 1975 Public Affairs Act when they were told that President Obama wanted to repeal it.  Democrats were more like to support keeping the 1975 Public Affairs Act when they were told Republicans wanted to repeal it.

P.S.  There is no 1975 Public Affairs Act.

In other words, for Democrats and for Republicans, for liberals and for conservatives, the party mattered more than the truth.

In John 3: 20, Jesus said “everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light.”  In verse 21, Jesus said, “he who does the truth comes to the light.”

Truth comes to light.  Evil doesn’t come to the light.

Jesus said that the opposite of truth is evil.

Political parties are not inherently evil.  But, absolute loyalty to a political party, or to any human institution, does and always has led to all kinds of EVIL.  Most Nazis during WWII never saw a concentration camp, but they supported their party.   Most White Southerners ,ca. 1781 – 1955, never murdered a Black person, but they revered the Klan and supported segregation.  Most of the ugliest episodes in human history have been carried out by people who personally knew little to nothing about the people they raped, murdered, and displaced.  They didn’t know the truth.  They only knew what their party told them.

Kill the Savages.

Hang the Niggers.

Death to America.

F*** the Police.

When historians arrive in the aftermath of party instituted atrocities, they pick through the rubble, and ask, “How could people have done such terrible things?”

Because the people didn’t know the truth.  And without truth, all you have is evil.

More and more, each of receives news tailored to our socio-political digital profile.  More and more, we see, hear, and read only what our party says.  We are increasingly isolated from the truth.  We are progressively conditioned for evil.

My side’s position isn’t true because it came from my side.  Your side’s either.  You and I have to put in the extra work to read the other side’s opinion, to dig into the mechanisms behind the study, to go 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 sources back to figure out how two equally qualified experts can reach such different conclusions. We have to discipline ourselves to stop immediately believing the expert who’s on “our side.”

We must pursue the truth, or we’ll end up serving truth’s opposite.  According to Jesus, the opposite of truth is evil.

Jesus said “ And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

(John 8: 32-34)

So you can either be a slave to your party’s sins (John 8: 34), or you can know the truth and counter the impetus to evil.

Only THE truth can make Americans free.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

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You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

WHO YOU CALLING A NAZI?

So, I keep seeing these memes about President Obama being a Nazi because he supports gun control.  I thought it was an interesting point, so I looked up information on gun laws in Germany before and after the Nazis took over.

The truth is----- well...In 1919, BEFORE THE NAZIs, in the wake of World War I, the German government passed the Regulations on Weapons Ownership, which declared that "all firearms, as well as all kinds of firearms ammunition, are to be surrendered immediately."    In 1920, the government enacted the Law on the Disarmament of the People which further limited military-type weapons.

The strongest German gun control laws were enacted BEFORE the Nazis came to power.

In 1928, under pressure from the the rising National Socialists (the NAZIs), the conservative majority in the German parliament revoked the 1919 Regulations on Weapons Ownership and relaxed gun restrictions but put into effect a strict firearm licensing scheme.

After Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany the Nazi led parliament passed the German Weapons Act which repealed pre-Nazi restrictions on gun ownership and expanded gun rights for everyone except Jews. 

The Nazis expanded gun rights for citizens.  At the same time they treated the Jews as non-citizens.

On November 11, 1938, the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons deprived Jews of the right to possess any form of weapons including truncheons, knives, or firearms and ammunition.

In Nazi Germany  more and more citizens had a guns, but a Jew with any weapon was automatically treated as a dangerous criminal.

So Nazi Germany was a powerful nation where ultra-conservative, right-wing interests expanded gun rights .  In that nation, the police serving those same ultra-conservative, right-wing interests treated an ethnic minority with any weapon as an automatic threat.  The police could kill the minority because “I saw a weapon,” or “I thought I saw a weapon,” even though it is legal for “regular” citizens to be armed.

Any of this sounding familiar?

Other things the Nazis did:

• Resegregated schools
• Changed school social studies curriculum by requiring more patriotic versions of  history
•    Effectively outlawed independent labor unioins (by forcing all to them to submit to the    Nazi’s German Labour Front)
• Demanded public support for a mythology of German exceptionalism (Aryanism)
• Promoted suspicion and hatred of immigrants and others who weren't "real" Germans
• Responded to all perceived and imagined threats with military aggression (often to spread “freedom” by “liberating” places like Paris)

If that sounds like any group you know, history encourages you to be real, real, real careful about giving them any more power.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

TRICKY, TRICKY, TRICKY: THE DEBATE OVER MINIMUM WAGE

I love rhetoric, the art of arguing.  The way some people appreciate the arc of smooth jump shot, I notice the flow of well-crafted sarcasm.   I don't always root for the winning team, but I can appreciate the skill they bring to the linguistic field especially when it comes to trick plays.

And I have to give triple props to the Tea Party and their team of conservative players.  They have changed the game of political rhetoric, and I'd like to take a moment and share just 3 of their most clever plays.

One of the simplest and most ingenious tricks of debate is to get your opponent arguing over a single sub-point while you repeat the main point as if it were all ready proven.

Another trick is to constantly change the midpoint (the average between the two sides where compromise is usually found) by restating your position in more and more extreme terms.  It's like raising the bet in poker until the other guy just gives up because the stakes are ridiculously high.

For example,  in the debate over raising minimum wage:  Opponents say that raising minimum wage will cause a loss of jobs.  That's one of many sub-points about the issue.  But, supporters of a higher minimum wage get caught up in trying to empirically disprove this hypothetical argument that cannot be proven or disproven.   Meanwhile conservatives continue to simply state "Minimum wage costs jobs" as though the point  was proven and printed on stone tablets in God's handwriting.
1st Trick.

In the same discussion over raising minimum wage: When supporters propose a $1.75 increase, opponents counter by saying eliminate minimum wage all together.  They change the midpoint and now supporters fall over themselves trying to prove that there should be a minimum wage. They lose focus on why it should be higher.
Trick #2.

It's ingenious.  I really admire the rhetorical savvy of conservative strategists.

They've gotten the other side so discombobulated that they haven't made the simplest most obvious observation:  No matter what you do with minimum WAGE, America will never have minimum COST.
Eliminate minimum wage and Coca Cola will pay $2/ day.  But a 20 oz. Sprite won't cost a penny less.
Keep minimum wage the same and Raceway will keep paying its employees the same amount, but Raceway is not going to keep gas prices at the same amount.  They aren't going to freeze the price of honey buns.
You can freeze or eliminate a minimum pay scale but it won't freeze minimum real estate prices or the prices of milk, bread, baby food, health care, or college.

And the 3rd Trick is to compare one aspect of 2 different situations while ignoring every other aspect of the comparison.

Opponents make the comparison between the competitiveness of American businesses and the businesses of nations without minimum wage.  I can't figure out why supporters don't just follow through on that comparison and talk about the lack of human rights, the abysmal poverty, the absence of what we consider basic services like sanitation and electricity, and the rampant governmental corruption that are endemic to "competitive" countries with little or no minimum wage policies.

People are supporting policies that give American billionaires the sweeter life of Chinese billionaires without thinking 2 more steps ahead to see that it means American citizens having the life of Chinese peasants.

Like I said, it's an ingenious strategy.  Gotta respect the skills of these conservative strategists.

 ---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

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