Free Speech Means More Speech, Not Less

I had a conversation with a person a few days ago who is anti-free speech. In fact, we couldn't seem to find much common ground in our conversation and there is a lot from that conversation that I may eventually post on, but for now, I want to focus on the free speech issue.

The conversation began with her bemoaning the fact that Facebook is somehow responsible for all the misinformation that was spread over the past couple of years regarding COVID and other things. I know there is a story out there about the whistleblower saying Facebook is talking out of both sides of its mouth regarding the suppression of misinformation.

The problem is that there is very rarely a real person blocking posts, suspending users, putting warnings up in front of pictures, etc. Most of the time, there are algorithms that determine if a picture, meme, video, or other kinds of posts contain content that breaks Facebook's community rules, requires a warning, or requires a user to be suspended or warned.

Two personal examples illustrate the lack of people monitoring the information being posted on Facebook.

1. On May 26th of last year, my son and a friend of his rescued a dog. While we were trying to figure out what to do with the dog, we kept him at our house. On May 27th, I took a video of the dog and shared it on Instagram. That video is still up on Instagram despite being owned by Facebook. However, I selected the feature to share the video on Facebook and Facebook rejected the video saying it contained sexually explicit content and a warning was put on my account. I disagreed with the warning, but nobody at Facebook ever got back to me and there was no recourse because I'm a nobody. Because Instagram uses different algorithms for some reason, the video is still up there.

2. Ever since I started Facebook, I have always made it a challenge to debunk fake news. Within the last few years, an old meme started to make the rounds making a very old and easily disproven claim that Irish were sent to the United States as chattel slaves. I shared the meme with a rebuttal to the claim. More than a week went by and Facebook's fact-checkers finally caught up with me and decided to fact-check the meme as well. So, anyone who saw my picture after that saw a message that the picture contained misinformation. Evidently, that drew Facebook's attention to my page again.

In September, I shared a meme questioning the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccine. Along with the meme, I posted a response. A few days later, I received a warning from Facebook. I forget the exact language and wish I had taken a screenshot. Essentially, the warning said that because I had shared misinformation memes in the past, they were going to limit the visibility of my posts. Now, I frankly don't care, but I did notice an immediate dropoff in interaction with my page. I don't make a living with Facebook, so it wasn't that important to me. Recently, however, a friend of mine saw a post and said it had been a while since he had seen anything from me. So, Facebook obviously throttled back the visibility of my page.

In their rush to suppress misinformation, Facebook created an algorithm that suppresses speech that is also trying to counter misinformation. And as I noted above, when you are accused by Facebook or Twitter of spreading misinformation based on a picture rather than the content of any comments on your post, or if you're accused by them of doing anything that violates their community standards, there is often very little recourse for the average user, and by "very little" I mean, "none."

I told these stories to the woman who was anti-free speech, and she said something to the effect of, "Well something has to be done to combat misinformation." I agreed with her, but I quoted Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who said, "... the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." And of course, she responded with a good old-fashioned "yeah but..." "Yeah, but because of the internet, misinformation spreads so much faster."

I told her those same kinds of arguments were made in regards to the telegraph, telephone, radio, and television. Even in the early days of the internet when it was mostly bulletin boards and chat rooms, and e-mail was in its infancy, politicians worried about how the information superhighway would be abused to spread misinformation. Level heads prevailed, at least to some extent, because Brandeis was right: the remedy is more speech, not less.

My debate opponent persisted that the internet is a different animal. I conceded that, but I also said that it is a much harder animal to control. I made the argument that when Facebook and Twitter started cracking down on free speech because of what they considered to be hate speech and misinformation, people didn't just stop spreading misinformation because they were locked out of Facebook, they went to MeWe and Parler.

Instead of creating an open forum for the free exchange of ideas, Facebook tried to turn itself into an echo chamber of mostly progressive and leftist ideas. Those on the right went to MeWe and Parler and those social media platforms became an echo chamber of mostly conservative and rightwing ideas. Now, Donald Trump is going to create his own social media platform that I guarantee will be completely avoided by moderates and the left, except for media types and politicians, but his social media platform will become an echo chamber of far-right ideas.

Today, John Stossel posted a video that brings something to light that is even more concerning. Facebook isn't just suppressing right-wing ideas. It is suppressing any information that conflicts with the societal narrative it is trying to create. Thus, even left-wing writers, scientists, politicians, and entertainers are getting "fact-checked," censored, and blocked, because the information they are sharing, even if true, conflicts with Facebook's narrative.

This brings me back to my conversation/debate a few days ago. "When you suppress free speech..." I began, but she interrupted me to inform me that she doesn't like the word suppress. She said what Facebook and Twitter are doing is a corrective to misinformation, which as of today we know is not true. I told her she can call it whatever she wants to, but the reality is that a "corrective" doesn't make misinformation or speech you don't like disappear. Because some of the information that Facebook is censoring is coming from legitimate sources, think tanks, educational institutions, research organizations, and so forth, that information will not be suppressed at all. It simply won't be available to the masses on social media. When you suppress misinformation, it also doesn't go away. It goes into an echo chamber where the misinformation will grow, fester, and likely turn into something worse.

This is an argument I've been making for years, so it was very easy for me to make this argument when I had this conversation. I think that she realized that she wasn't going to change my mind, so she changed the subject, which she did on a number of occasions. She even tried to end the conversation by saying she needed to go eat lunch because she had low blood sugar, but then wanted to get the last word in, which meant our conversation continued and meandered through a number of topics.

What I did not get to tell her, because of the conversational course changes, is that what Louis Brandeis called "enforced silence" and what I call "suppression of free speech" is not the action of a person who loves liberty. Advocating for the suppression of speech you don't like is intellectually lazy when it is espoused by individuals and it is tyranny when it is espoused or actually done by politicians in power.

Noam Chomsky, with whom I disagree on a variety of subjects politically, economically, religiously, and many more philosophical subjects, has a great quote about free speech. He said, "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech."

Another point I have been making for years is that when the precedent is set that the government can suppress speech, the party in power gets to decide what is acceptable speech and what is not. Democrats, do you really want Republicans to decide what is and is not acceptable speech? Republicans, do you really want Democrats to decide what is and is not acceptable speech? I'm independent, so I don't want any political party, politician, pundit, or individual telling me what is acceptable speech.

If someone is saying something you don't like, you need to figure out a good way to counter those words, and shouting them down, or worse, reacting with violence is not the remedy or productive in any way. In fact, those are the kinds of tactics that fascists and tyrants actually use. If you say you're anti-fascist but you shout down and attack people that you disagree with, you are actually a fascist.

Study the things you're passionate about. Learn the arguments for and against. Have rational conversations, even if you think your opponent is irrational. You may find that you change your mind about some things. Of course, most people are subject to confirmation bias, so study may not change your mind. Whether or not study changes your mind, you'll win more people to your side with polite conversation than you will by lazily shouting them down. Sure, study takes work and it's going to be harder, but if you want to win debates, and you won't win them all, you're going to need to work at it. That's why I said advocating for or simply being in favor of suppressing free speech is intellectually lazy.

There are also those who say that speech should be suppressed because words themselves can be violence. If words are violence, well, to quote Bill Maher, who strangely seems to be one of the few people who is still making sense these days, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words? Well, if you don't know how the second part goes, you need to go back to kindergarten."

Independence Day—July 2nd or July 4th?

John Trumbull. 1818. “Declaration of Independence.” U.S. Capitol. Washington, D.C.

From the end of the French and Indian War until 1770, the conflict between Great Britain and the American Colonies had intensified into full-blown violence, culminating with the Boston Massacre in March 1770. For the next five years, small skirmishes took place throughout the Colonies. Then, in April of 1775, British troops were ordered to confiscate weapons from town arsenals and other military equipment caches, and to arrest leaders of organizations who were calling for rebellion against Great Britain. On April 19th, 1775, in the Battle of Lexington and Concord the Colonial militia drove the British military back to Boston.

The Colonies were not fully ready or willing to go to war against what was at the time the most powerful military in the world. On July 5th, 1775, the Second Continental Congress drafted the Olive Branch Petition in hopes that the conflict could be put to an end. Many members of Congress were upset that any attempt to appease Great Britain was being made, but Congress realized that the Olive Branch Petition could fail and on July 6th drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. The next month, Great Britain issued the Proclamation of Rebellion after King George III learned about the Battle of Bunker Hill which took place on June 17th, 1775.

In spite of that, the Colonies were still willing to negotiate peace and continued to make attempts until the summer of 1776. In June, "the Committee of Five" was selected to draft a declaration. The committee consisted of John Adams (Mass.), Benjamin Franklin (Penn.), Thomas Jefferson (Virg.), Robert R. Livingston (N. Yk.), and Roger Sherman (Conn.).

On July 2nd, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the following resolution to the Second Continental Congress: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Thus, July 2nd, 1776 is the date that the Second Continental Congress declared American independence from Great Britain.

John Adams, who had been frustrated with attempts at peace negotiations over the previous year was elated and wrote to his wife on July 3rd, 1776, telling her, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

If America officially declared independence from Great Britain on July 2nd, why do we celebrate on July 4th?

After the measure was passed, a committee was formed to create a document that would explain the resolution and its reasoning to the general public. The committee of five, already at work on the declaration went back to work in earnest and by July 4th, they had all the elements they believed would be required. Thomas Jefferson was recognized as the most eloquent writer and was assigned with the final draft which was then taken to a printer that day. Thus, the header of the Declaration of Independence reads, "In Congress, July 4, 1776"

200 broadsides were printed and sent out throughout the colonies. 26 of those still exist. The original handwritten version wasn't signed until August 2nd, 1776. Since members of Congress were pretty tied up with the war, they didn't think about the Declaration again until July 3rd, 1777 and July 4th seemed to make sense as the day to celebrate independence. John Adams and many of the Federalists still believed that July 2nd should be the date, but Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans believed it should be July 4th and the argument continued until 1812 when the Federalists faded away as a party. After that, July 4th was cemented as Independence Day.

On July 2nd, 1826, Thomas Jefferson wrote his final letter and commended future generations to remember and celebrate Independence Day, not just as a day to remember America's independence, but as the day that the first world government recognized all human rights. He wrote, "For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."

Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died two days later on July 4th, 1826.

History is revised all the time and that's okay

The term "historical revisionism" is too often misused. Revising history is why historians exist. When most people talk about "historical revisionism" what they really mean is denialism, negationism, or distortion. Denialism and negationism are essentially the same things. Denialists say historical facts did not actually happen. For instance, there is a growing number of people who adhere to the negationist belief that the Holocaust did not take place.

Often kissing cousins to denialism/negationism is historical distortionism. Distortionists take well-known events, people, and places and change them and their history to fit a philosophical agenda. A mild example of this, using the Holocaust as an example once again, would be those who say, "Well, yeah, the Nazis did kill six million Jews, but they killed a lot of other people too," in an attempt to minimize the effect the Holocaust had on Jews as a people.

A more common type of distortionism happens when advocates of a specific philosophical agenda pick and choose which facts to believe, teach, or emphasize when teaching history. In history and especially Latin American history, we refer to this as either the White Legend or the Black Legend.

The White Legend is a version of history that focuses on a specific group of people as heroes of history. They were all great, they were all godly, they were all brilliant, and their lives should be emulated. In the study of Western Civilization, that would be like focusing on the fact that Greeks developed democracy while ignoring the fact that most of the population of Greece were slaves and were completely disfranchised. Scholarly adherents of the White Legend might concede the existence of slavery while qualifying that concession with "yeah but."

The Black Legend, on the other hand, vilifies the heroes of the White Legend and even when talking about their achievements, they do it in a way that shines the brightest lights on their flaws and misdeeds. The Black Legend also will focus on oppressed peoples as the heroes of the story, often ignoring the flaws of the oppressed that they criticized in the oppressors. An example would be the growing narrative of the colonization of the New World as the worst thing to ever happen in the history of mankind and the Old World, especially Europe should be apologizing for ever setting foot in the New World. Black Legend historians also frequently commit the historian's fallacy, that is they judge the past and the people of the past by today's standards, rather than judging them based on the standards of the past and recognizing that those people were products of their environment and upbringing in that society and culture of the past.

The reality, where good history is involved, lies between the two. We can look at the achievements of people of the past and say, "Wow! That's really something." We can also look at their flaws and the things that we would consider evil in our time and say, "Wow. That's really bad." The trick is to be both unbiased and nuanced. Something that is woefully missing from the public narrative and the teaching of history in too many schools. Frankly, I think I was lucky in college to have a majority of professors who at least attempted to remain unbiased and present a nuanced version of history. That said, one of my favorite professors was openly biased about some things in history. He and I disagreed on how Thomas Jefferson should be approached on day one of the first class I had with him. I took that professor twice and loved his class both times and even got As without sacrificing my approach to history.

The worst kind of distortionism, albeit also the rarest, is when "historians" just make up history.

A few years ago, Virginia came out with a new history textbook for elementary school. In the 4th grade text in the section on the Civil War, there was a claim that free blacks in the South and slaves actually served as soldiers in the Confederacy. No such thing happened. When the author, Joy Masoff was asked why she included the section, she said she wanted to "add a little something extra."

A few months ago, I read an article on the website, We Are the Mighty, titled, “5 cringeworthy military slang terms (that we should actually retire),” that suggested the term "in country" was a shortened form of “Indian Country,” and was used in the military to mean enemy territory. Having been in the military, the only use of the term "in country" I have ever heard referred to actually being in a country while deployed. The author of the article, Blake Stilwell was suggesting that the term, “in country” no longer be used because of its racist heritage. The author of the article provided a link to order Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States where the article's author found the claim. I had never heard this claim before, so first, I searched to see if this claim had been made by anyone else. It had not. Second, I looked up the etymology of the phrase "in country" to see its history. The phrase "in country," according to the Oxford English Dictionary was first used in 1560 in England and was actually the shortening of the phrase "interior country" meaning the interior regions of any country. The phrase’s first use in the 20^th century was in 1953, in a book of poetry by Dylan Thomas called, A Prospect of the Sea and meant being in a specific country. So, then, I got a hold of Dunbar-Ortiz's book and looked up the sections where she refers to "in country." One section claims that the phrase “in country” was a shortening of the phrase "Indian Country" and originated in the Vietnam War, which according to the Oxford English Dictionary is incorrect. So, I then looked up her sources in the footnotes and bibliography. She had one footnote for both times she made her claim, but that footnote just describes what qualifies as “Indian Country” according to political scientist Sharon O’Brien in her 1993 book, American Indian Tribal Governments. The term “in country” does not appear anywhere in O’Brien’s work either. Without a source to back up her claim and with scholarly sources that actually counter Dunbar-Ortiz’s claim, one can only assume that she made it up.

Often, fabrications, like Masoff’s claim about black Confederate soldiers, are easy to spot and debunk. Fabrications like Dunbar-Ortiz’s claim are more insidious because she has a Ph.D. in History from a respected university and most people will simply take her claim at face value and then repeat it, even in academic settings. I took a humanities course in college and the professor with a Ph.D. repeated the “rule of thumb” urban legend as fact. This particular urban legend states that English Common Law stipulated that a man could beat his wife as long as the rod he used was no wider than the width of his thumb. This urban legend is easily disprovable, but because it is often repeated as factual in feminist academic circles, it continues to be treated as fact in many places in the rest of academia.

Teaching history is difficult enough as it is because there is a lot of it. History teachers and curriculum developers have to balance teaching good history along with trying to determine the most important topics to cover in the time allotted. On top of that, there are political forces at work, pulling from all directions that demand their important topics are covered as well. When the curriculum is finalized and shows up in school districts, teachers have to figure out how to teach the curriculum in a way that also meets the demands placed on them by standardized testing objectives created at the state and federal levels.

Primary school teachers are rarely history majors and get an awful lot wrong. I first learned about Christopher Columbus in second grade and was taught that Columbus set out on his 1492 voyage to prove that the world is round when most of the people of his day still believed that the world was flat. Neither of those claims is true. Most people in 15^th century Europe believed the world was spherical and had for centuries. Aristotle is often credited with being the first to claim the earth was a sphere, but people for centuries before Aristotle—Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Mesopotamians, and Phoenicians—had an understanding of a spherical earth, especially mariners. I was also taught that Columbus discovered America, but the fact that there were humans in the Americas for thousands of years makes that claim clearly incorrect. Even the claim that he was the first European to set foot in the New World is wrong because the Vikings accomplished that hundreds of years before Columbus.

In secondary schools (middle schools and high schools) history teachers are just as often history majors as they majors of other social sciences. A teacher I had the opportunity to observe who teaches history was a political science major and has a J.D. She told me that she knew a lot about history and the facts behind most of the laws she teaches in her government classes, but she was at a loss on how to teach straight history. She still sends me notes from time-to-time for advice on certain subjects.

The point I am trying to make is that teachers in public schools, regardless of what their biases may be—and yes they have biases and yes they sneak them into their curriculum—have an incredibly demanding job just trying to meet the standards. People often tell me, “So much has been erased from history books.” I have to respond, “False.” The information is still there, but there is not enough time to teach everything that everyone wants to teach. In Western Civilization, when teaching about the development of democracy in Greece, I really wish more time was spent on Cleisthenes, the man who essentially invented democracy, how he came up with the idea, why he came up with the idea, and a little more of his background to really give a context for his invention of democracy. Yet, I never heard of Cleisthenes before I graduated from high school. In my Western Civilization course in college, Cleisthenes was mentioned one time in one sentence in the one chapter on Greece that covered Greece’s pre-history through Hellenistic Greece. My professor, who spent three lectures on Greece never mentioned Cleisthenes one time. I watched a documentary on Ancient Greece last week, a documentary I thought was fabulous by the way, yet Cleisthenes was only mentioned in passing at the end of the second episode. I think Cleisthenes is the biggest hero of Greece’s Golden Age, but to most historians, he’s a footnote.

Some people cry, “I can’t stand the way history has been changed.” History is going to change. It has to. I mean, if we have all the documentation on a person, place, or event, history may not change much, if at all. However, because of human nature, historical evidence gets lost, destroyed, misplaced, or hidden and it takes years, sometimes, for that evidence to come to light. Sometimes, when that evidence comes to light, it completely changes the way historians understand and interpret history and history has to change. I’m writing this essay because of the way so many people recently have been making this very complaint.

Just the other day, I saw a meme on Facebook that claimed that the Pyramids of Giza were built by slaves. I made a simple response challenging that idea since archaeologists and historians no longer believe this. Between finding no slave burials at or near the site, the care in which the people who worked on the pyramids were treated when they died, the records the workers left behind, and numerous other archaeological findings, it became clear to archaeologists, historians, and Egyptologists that slaves were not involved. My response was intended as a light-hearted comment that I hoped would direct people to look up the information. I even included a line in my response that the pyramids were also not built by aliens or with spaceships and ended it with a “winking” emoji. My claim was met with abuse. I’m not easily offended, but I figured the replies I had received were just based on ignorance, so I responded by posting an article by Zahi Hawass, who is the world’s leading Egyptologist. It was not a scholarly peer-reviewed work, but I made the mistake of believing that Hawass was well-enough known to be respected. I was wrong. Hawass was accused by one commenter of being a racist elitist and that the article I posted was merely his opinion. I gave up, because willful ignorance is hard to overcome. Many people came to my defense and Hawass’ article replying with comments about archaeological findings and mentioning articles and books to read, but at some point, you’re just feeding trolls. It’s best to just let them starve.

“They’re not teaching history the way I was taught history.” The way history is taught is going to change over time. It has to. Too many people contributed to history that have been left out of the story. American history, for instance, is usually taught as a line of progress, led by white men. Yes, white men enslaved Africans, but who freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln who was white. Women fought for the right to vote, but who gave them the right to vote? The mostly white, male Congress when they passed the 19^th amendment. African-Americans fought for their very Civil Rights, but who gave it to them? The white President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

I must concede that my statement in the above paragraph was slightly hyperbolic. Obviously, there are some non-white, non-male people who have been included in the teaching of history, but has history really been all that inclusive? Let me use the Revolutionary era and the Revolutionary War as one example. Most Americans are familiar with the Boston Massacre which took place on March 5, 1770. Many Americans might even be familiar with the fact that the first man to die in the event was Crispus Attucks. However, most people don’t know that he was black, and fewer still know that he also was part Native American. How about the famous Midnight Ride of Paul Revere? Most people don’t know that there was another midnight rider that night. While Revere rode west, another man, Wentworth Cheswell rode north to warn other communities. Wentworth Cheswell’s mother was white. His father was black. There were other midnight riders as well, one of them was a woman, Sybil Ludington who made her midnight ride April 26^th, 1777. She rode 40 miles (twice the distance of Paul Revere) to warn militiamen in Putnam County, New York that the British were going to attack a Continental Army supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut. Deborah Sampson was a woman who dressed up like a man to fight in the Revolutionary War and received a pension after the war, even after her secret was discovered and in spite of her having broken the law concerning women in military service.

There are even more stories of brave men and women of all ethnicities who fought and died for what would become the United States of America. We can’t tell all their stories in a single curriculum, but we can tell more than we have, which is why history isn’t taught the way I was taught or you were taught, nor should it be. When we do bump up the untold stories up the list of priority, someone who previously had their story told gets bumped off the curriculum. Their stories still exist, but people who are generally interested and concerned about history will have to do some extra reading.

While most historians attempt to remain unbiased, history is still a subject of some interpretation. I don’t mean that historians interpret something to have happened or not, because the evidence provides us with the answers to the questions of who, what, and where. Historians often have to answer the questions of why and how and it is absolutely impossible to prevent any biases from slipping in. Even so, historians can still come to a consensus about some interpretations simply because the subjects of history often leave the answers to all the questions.

History is going to change and that’s okay. It changes every day. As long as people exist in places and do things, more and more will be added to history, which makes it change. History also changes as new evidence is discovered, which also happens every day. Those discoveries affect not only our knowledge of history but our interpretations as well. Attitudes, ideas, and cultures change, and as long as they continue to change, interpretations of history, where there is room for interpretation, will change along with them. If history doesn’t change, there is no purpose for historians. It’s also important for non-historians to know history, though, because as George Santayana is often quoted as correctly observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If remembering the past were not important, then that would be the final nail in the coffin for historians. Knowing history also means knowing that change happens not only in history but how history is done. That's what revision is and that's why revision is actually a good thing.

Azulão

Composer: Jayme Ovalle (1894-1955)
Lyrics: Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968)

In early March, cellist Yo-Yo Ma encouraged musicians around the world to create music during the COVID-19 global pandemic and attach the hashtag #SongsOfComfort. I first fell in love with this song in 1990 and it has always brought me comfort. So, using my very limited recording capabilities, I recorded this song in my home on March 19. While I uploaded the video on Facebook and Instagram, I completely forgot to upload it here. I hope people will enjoy and take comfort during their time at home.

#SongsOfComfort #StayHome #WithMe #QuarantineAndChill #FlattenTheCurve

The Coronavirus, Giving Feet to Your Prayers, and Not Foolishly Tempting God

“Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38)

There is an old saying: “Put feet to your faith,” or alternatively, “Put feet to your prayers.” In other words, prayer is necessary and important. As Hank Hanegraff has famously said, “Prayer is firing the winning shot before the battle ever takes place.” However, it’s also important to understand that God usually uses people—His people—to accomplish His purposes. In the verse quoted above, Christ tells his disciples that laborers are needed to accomplish God’s purposes. Then, in the very next chapter, Christ sends his disciples to accomplish His purposes (Matthew 10:5). Christ, in those passages, sets the example that we need to pray and then we need to go do something, when we are able, to accomplish what we are praying for.

There was a man who lived alone in an area prone to flooding. One year, a storm came through that threatened to breach dikes and the potential for flooding was extremely high. Officials warned people living in the area where the man lived that the whole area could be submerged and ordered an evacuation. The man laughed at the television broadcast and said, “The Lord will provide.”

As the storm began to roll in, local government officials began going door-to-door to warn people to evacuate. A police officer in a truck came to the man’s house, knocked on the door, and warned him that the river levels were rising, could breach the dikes any minute, and told him he needed to evacuate. The officer even offered to assist the gentleman in gathering any necessities. The man simply waved the officer away saying, “The Lord will provide.”

As predicted, the river breached the dikes and soon the whole area was flooded. At first, the man simply went up to the second floor of his house. A man in a boat drove by and noticed the man in his home. The boatman told the man to get in the boat and the man waved him away with cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Hours later, the man was forced to the roof of his home as the river waters overwhelmed his second floor. A helicopter from the Coast Guard flew over and noticed the man. They lowered a ladder and told him to climb in, but the man waved them away with the same cries of, “The Lord will provide.”

Finally, the water overwhelmed the house, the man was swept away and drowned. As he stood before God, he said, “I thought you would provide.” In response, God said, “I provided a news report, a truck, a boat, and a helicopter.”

When God told Moses that He would deliver Israel, He also told Moses that he would be the instrument of delivery. James tells us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (James 1:22). James also shows us what that means:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:15-17).

A person can’t depend on faith that food and clothing will just magically appear. Something needs to be an instrument of provision. Usually, the instrument of provision is a job, but when people fall on hard times, they turn to charity and God’s people should then become that instrument of provision.

We may pray for the poor, but we also need to provide for the poor. We may pray for change in the world, but perhaps we should take note of Mahatma Gandhi’s advice to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Often, when tragedy strikes, you will often hear Christians say they are sending their thoughts and prayers. They are then immediately ridiculed by unbelievers who say, “You can pray all day long, but what good will it do? Maybe you should go and do something!” Good point and James makes this very same point:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:18-20)

This is the same conversation—an unbeliever is ridiculing a believer who sits around and does nothing while the unbelievers are out working and making changes in the world. James says, faith is not enough. Even worse, faith without works is dead. You can believe all the right things and even be sure of your own salvation, but what good does that do if you keep it to yourself? The word “dead” is correctly translated, but it is used here as a euphemism for being worthless, good for nothing.

As the song, This little light of mine says: 

Hide it under a bushel?

No!

It’s not enough to say, “I have faith.” It’s not enough to say, “I’m thinking of you and praying for you.” One must show their faith through action. As James wrote, “I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

Now, if a family’s house burns down, you may not be able to provide a new house or the long-term housing for a displaced family by yourself, but that’s where the community of faith comes in. The whole church can come together and help those in need. The church I go to has a winter clothing drive in the fall and provides clothing to those in need throughout the year. The church also has a food pantry to help people in need of food. My church is not unique in these ministries. When people are in need, the church can provide all kinds of help to its members and I can speak from personal experience because I have been both the recipient and benefactor of charity through my local church.

To those who mock believers for sending thoughts and prayers, keep in mind that when tragedy strike, it is usually believers as part of the community of faith who are the first on the scene providing aid, comfort, and helping in whatever way they can. When hurricanes hit, churches are usually already assisting in the recovery before FEMA and other government agencies can even get mobilized.

Along with the strange idea that God will magically provide through prayer, as if God has a Star Trek transporter in heaven that He uses to beam down our needs, is the idea that we can put ourselves in unnecessary danger and if we pray to God, He will deliver us from all harm. Granted, if it’s God’s will, He can do some amazing things and even deliver us from all harm, but that doesn’t mean we should tempt God—that is we should not put Him to the test.

In the early 16^th century, the plague hit Saxony (part of modern-day Germany). Wittenberg, the home of one of the most famous men in Church history, Martin Luther was especially hard hit. COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is unlikely to affect humanity on the same scale like the plague, but Martin Luther’s response seems both relevant to the discussion of putting our feet to our prayers and not foolishly tempting God by putting ourselves in unnecessary risk. One pastor, Dr. John Hess wrote to Luther asking for advice on how to deal with the plague. Martin Luther wrote this in response:

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.”

Christ told his followers the pray with the faith that they would receive what they prayed for. “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). However, James also tells us that people often do not have their prayers answered in the way they expect because they were praying selfishly. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3).

Praying selfishly is just another way of putting God to the test. Praying something like, “God. I’ll believe you exist if you give me a million dollars,” or “God, if you make my debt go away, I’ll become a missionary” are hypothetical examples of how people tempt God—put God to the test—through prayer.

There are four lessons to take away from all this:

1. Pray selflessly. It’s okay to ask for your needs and your health, but try to remember that it’s not just about you.

2. Pray with faith that you will receive what you ask for. Don’t just go through the motions of prayer thinking it’s meaningless. Prayer has power. But…

3. Pray with action. God usually uses people to achieve His purposes.

4. Do not pray in a way that puts God to the test. Don’t foolishly put yourself in harm thinking that God is going to protect you every time, and don’t pray selfishly, especially when you know you’re asking for something that God does not want you to have.

Think about it.

How Did Christians Decide Christmas Was On December 25th?

The Nativity by He Qi

A 12th century biblical scholar named Jacob Bar-Salibi wrote a bible commentary dated to 1171 A.D., a copy of which was discovered in the 19th century. In a note written in the margin of the copy that was found is the claim that Christmas was moved from January 6th to December 25th to coincide with the Roman pagan holiday Sol Invictus. From this, Christian critics, legalist Christian sects, and Christian cults condemned the celebration of Christmas as being of pagan origin. While the Bible makes no mention of the date when Christ was born, there is quite a bit of evidence that He was not born in December, namely that the Bible states that there were Shepherds keeping their flocks in the fields at night, which is not something they would have done in the winter. There are other ways to estimate the time of Christ’s birth, but suffice it to say, He was not born in December. Does that mean that Christmas is a celebration of pagan origin?

20th century scholarship, much of it still unknown outside of work by historians and scholars of ancient texts, has actually refuted this idea by looking at the Christian practices and writing of the time the supposed borrowing took place. When Aurelian proclaimed Sol Invictus to be an official cult of the Roman Empire on December 25th, 274 A.D. and thus making that day the feast day of Sol Invictus, most Christians were not celebrating the birth of Christ. There was some interest in determining the date of His birth, with Clement of Egypt writing in 200 A.D., recording some of the proposed dates as March 21st, April 15th, 20th, or 21st, or May 20th. At any rate, one of the reasons why Christians were persecuted from the foundation of the religion until the tolerance of Constantine in 312 A.D. was that they did everything they could to remain wholly separate and distinct from non-Christians. They would not have adopted a holiday from pagans at all from 274 to 312, as well as for many years after.

It was not until the late 6th century that Pope Gregory suggested “Christianizing” pagan celebrations in hopes of getting pagans to adopt Christianity. This also explains why many modern Christmas decorations like the Christmas tree, Yule log, wreath and lights all have pagan origins. No Christian writer prior to Gregory even suggested such a thing. On the contrary, their works suggested the exact opposite, encouraging pagans to throw off all semblance of paganism. Augustine in the third century, wrote a book titled Confessions in which he describes his conversion to Christianity and his separation from paganism and in addition to defending Christianity against pagan scholars, he lifts up his mother as an example by telling how she would stop any activity when she found it had the slightest similarity to pagan celebrations. Since Augustine was the model theologian for the early church and many theologians of his time and for centuries after tried to be like him, it should come as no surprise that there is no encouragement from any writer until Pope Gregory to adopt Christian celebrations and paganize them.

The problem is that Christmas appears as a Christian celebration long before the time of Pope Gregory. Pope Julius I proclaimed December 25th to be the official date to celebrate Christ’s birth in 350 A.D. The first official celebration of Christmas in the Roman Empire was on December 25th, 336 A.D. There is even a record that shows that Christians in Antioch (present day Turkey) celebrated Christmas on December 25th in about 150 A.D. The earliest record of the term “Sol Invictus” is from 158 A.D.

If Jesus was not born in December and Christians did not take the date from pagans, where did the date of December 25th come from? Early Christians may have determined the date by determining Christ’s death. In about 200 A.D., Tertullian of Carthage said that Jesus died on March 25th. A rabbinical tradition that important events repeat on the same date caused Tertullian and other North African Christians to believe that the annunciation—Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would conceive of the Holy Spirit—happened on March 25th as well. Augustine was familiar with the March 25th date and reported it in a sermon he preached.

“For he is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”

In other words, if Jesus was conceived on March 25th, a belief held by Christians for at least 74 years before Aurelian’s proclamation of Sol Invictus, then simply adding nine months gives a date of December 25th according to the same tradition. The evidence is quite clear that Christians were using this date for 124 years prior to Aurelian’s proclamation and even several years before a belief in Sol Invictus even began.

No matter how this issue is approached, the birth of Christ was believed by Christians to have been on December 25th long before the proclamation of Sol Invictus

John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons

Sunday night I had some free time for once and I decided to watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons. This is now showing on Netflix and is a filmed version of his one-man Broadway show. Leguizamo attempts to tell the history of Latin America in the form of a narrative about helping his son work on a middle school project.

The show is based on some true events. When Leguizamo's son, Lucas was in middle school, he was bullied by white kids at his school and called names like "beaner." When Leguizamo informed the faculty and the offending students were punished, the bullying was intensified. Lucas became ashamed of his heritage and his father set out to find some kind of Latin American history his son could be proud of. The show is the product of his research.

I'm glad that he took the time to do some research, but as with any actor's attempt to "teach" history, the result is promblematic. Leguizamo's source material includes Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States," which Stanford historian and education expert, Sam Wineburg describes as a far left "crusade built on secondary sources of questionable provenance, omission of exculpatory evidence, leading questions and shaky connections between evidence and conclusions." Leguizamo's interpretation of Latin American history echoes the leftist crusade, is reductionist and reiterates leftist canards, one of the worst of which is that Europeans deliberately and systematically wiped out 95% of the indigenous population.

It is 100% true that the European treatment of indigenous Americans was criminal, and they made a solid go at killing off the population, but even liberal estimates put their achievement at a 15% reduction. The other 80% of the population was wiped out by disease. Leguizamo points this out, but his claim is that the Europeans figured out that European diseases were killing the indigenous people and all they had to do was wait around for indigenous people to get sick and then they could go in and waste the indigenous people. In order for Leguizamo's claim to be true, Europeans would have had to have a late 19th century understanding of bacteriology and epidemiology. Unfortunately for the people of the Americas, the European age of exploration began in the late 15th century. Vaccinology wasn't even invented until the late 18th century and even then, it wasn't well understood. The fact is, even if some "hey dude," peace-loving, hippies came to the New World from Europe, the native population of the Americas would still have been decimated by disease.

That's not genocide, because it's not deliberate, that's just plain bad luck.

At least with Zinn's book, Leguizamo was referencing respected, albeit problematic book. What I found surprising were the number of urban legends and meme claims being reiterated as fact by Leguizamo. For instance, he claims that the founding fathers plagiarized the US Constitution, copying it from the Iroquois Constitution. First of all, he doesn't even get the urban legend right. The urban legend is that the American Articles of Confederation were plagiarized from the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. Second, both of these documents are freely available from a variety of reputable sources. Conduct a simple internet search and you can find the full text of the Great Law of Peace, the American Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution. Read them, compare them, and contrast them. They are very different. Furthermore, the founding fathers, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who Leguizamo specifically names had a great deal of respect for Native Americans. While they may have drawn some inspiration from Native Americans (I have no documentation for that), most of the founding documents--the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution were based on the writings of European Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and Charles Montesquieu.

I was also disappointed by how often Leguizamo took the low road of comedy. He often criticizes Donald Trump in his show and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that he often stereotypically caricatures women, disabled people, people of different races, religions (including Judaism and Islam) and homosexuals. This bothers me on several levels. Donald Trump has been rightly criticized for doing the same thing. Conservative comedians would get raked over the coals for doing a show with content of this nature.

Don't get me wrong, Leguizamo gets a lot correct and if nothing else he addresses serious issues in the American approach to writing history text books. I was surprised he didn't address the Mexican-American studies program in Tucson that was banned by the school board for being un-American based on nothing more than hearsay. I was also surprised that in his search for Latin American heroes for his son, his first major figure was a European born Spaniard, General Bernardo de Gálvez . In his quest for Latin American heroes, he barely gave a footnote Venezuelan born Simón Bolívar , who is often referred to as the George Washington of South America. The Mexican Cry of Dolores lists six heroes of the Mexican Revolutionary era: Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Morelos, Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and Mariano Matamoros. He could have told his son about José de San Martín who brought independence to Argentina.

There is one last area where I feel John Leguizamo got something wrong. He claims that Latin American history has been systematically cut out of American history curriculum. I disagree, because in order for Latin American history to have been "cut out," it has to have been part of the history curriculum to begin with and it has not been, which, to me, is even more egregious than the history having been cut out.

Latin American history is usually limited to conflict arising from the secession of Texas from Mexico and the resulting Texas Revolution and then the Mexican-American War.

Usually, the only person who gets main billing for the Texas Revolution is Sam Houston and of course the heroes of the Alamo like William Travis, James Bowie, and Davy Crockett. What about Juana Navarro Alsbury, a Tejana who attempted to negotiate surrender for the Alamo defenders? I don't remember being taught about the Mexican-American War other than it happened and resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Mexican Cession. I don't remember reading about the Radical Whigs and Mexican Oligarchs working together to unify Mexico and the United States into one country, but being rebuffed by racist Americans in the Democrat party, including President James K. Polk and conservative Whigs who were worried that America was already too big and should not expand. I don't remember hearing that General Zachary Taylor was sent to occupy a disputed strip of land and began sending out patrols to taunt the Mexicans into a fight. When the Mexicans did attack a patrol which was on what the Mexicans perceived to be their territory, Polk claimed it was an act of war and used it as an excuse to force the Mexicans to sell the Mexican Cession for chump change.

I'm not suggesting that we give land back to Mexico. What I am saying is that Latin Americans of all national origins have contributed to the formation of this country, probably more so than any other minority group. I’m also suggesting that, while I believe that America is a great country, the teaching of its history should show everything, the good and the bad--warts, bruises, and all.

I do hope that people watch John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons with the understanding that it is primarily entertainment, problematic history with an agenda second, and with that understanding, I hope people will read and research and find out for themselves how their own ancestors contributed to the development and history of this country. As a historian and an aspiring educator, I hope that future curriculum will worry less about putting America in a consistently positive light and just teach history instead. I think America is great. I think America was built on positive ideals. However, America has not always lived up to those ideals and we have some skeletons in our closet. It might change the shade of light that history curriculum shines on America from rosy to stark, but how can future generations learn from the mistakes of the past if they don't know what the mistakes were?

If you’re looking for a good history of Latin America with no agenda, The Penguin History of Latin America by Edwin Williamson is probably the best there is. The Two-Volume A History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes is also good and has the benefit of some great illustrations. Another great book that deals with a lot of border issues during the time just before and just after the Mexican Cession is Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History by Karl Jacoby. I can’t recommend that book highly enough. I’m kind of obsessed with it.

Leguizamo did recommend two books that are worth reading. One is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. This is a great book that discusses why societies collapse and though it was written 21 years ago, it’s still relevant today. Jared Diamond also has a Ted Talk called “Why do Societies Collapse?” That condenses the findings of the book if you don’t want to read the whole book. Leguizamo also recommended 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Mann is a science journalist and this book consolidates the growing body of work by archaeologists, historians, ecologists, geographers, and anthropologists regarding Native American history.