Two things that are deserving of your attention
It is, of course, only my opinion that these two things are deserving of your attention but, since it’s my blog, I guess I get to have the final say on that point.
The first thing is an article I wrote of American Thinker: Obama, Jon Stewart and Progressivism’s Bodyguard of Lies
The traditional courtroom oath used to require the witness to state “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” To emphasize God’s role in this oath, the witness would place his hand on the Bible.
When a witness took that oath, even if he was only a moderately religious person, he could not escape the knowledge that he had put his soul on the line. If he got creative in his testimony, he wasn’t just lying to the court, he was lying to his Maker. That’s serious stuff.
For the past many years, though, the oath has been abbreviated in American courtrooms. Now, witnesses about to testify keep their hands in their laps and state only “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The end.
Can’t you just hear the nefarious, knowing snicker a less-than-honest witness inaudibly tacks on to the end of that oath? “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me . . . whatever . . . giggle, giggle.”
Sure, a really peeved prosecutor might come after the witness for perjury, but having spent almost 30 years in the legal field, I’ve only known that to happen once. While God’s eye may be on the smallest sparrow, our legal system really doesn’t care.
What many non-religious people forget is that original oath lies, not in the courtroom, but in the Bible. Lying is anathema to God, who made “Do not bear false witness” the ninth of his Ten Commandments. Dennis Prager neatly sums up why God’s mandate about how men must speak to each other is such an essential part of a functioning society:
Read more here.
The second thing is a beautiful and deeply moving newspaper story about forgiveness and redemption. I have it on reliable authority that every word in this story is true:
The two men gathered for a potluck with their families and friends in a Bennett Valley townhome clubhouse festooned with balloons and ribbons and once again shared the extraordinary story of how they met, two drivers whose cars and lives collided on a rainy night 20 years ago in almost predestined fashion.
The subdued festivity a week ago — the New Age music, a couple of playful toddlers running around under their mom’s watchful gaze, and through the windows a green landscape with splashes of dappled sunlight between rain showers — belied the dark, terrible circumstances that brought Steve Backman and Chris Loukas together.
Backman, 39 at the time, was a bar-hopping, habitual drunken driver, an unemployed construction worker who saw little reason to live.
The near-fatal crash on Highway 116 near Cotati on Jan. 28, 1995, what the two men would refer to as “the incident … because there are no accidents in life,” forged an unlikely bond between them, becoming a tale of redemption and the power of forgiveness.
Read the rest here.
Taking the two articles together, I asked myself if I’ll ever be able to forgive the Left for what it’s done to our country. My answer was no. While Backman never intended to hurt anyone but himself, although his negligence made a devastating accident almost inevitable, American Progressives engage deliberately in behavior intended to deceive the American people. To me, that’s unforgivable.
