Father's Day

What does it mean to declare yourself a father? In today's America, father is a bad word. My father was not a man I had anything but hate for when I was growing up, and I think that hate existed so strongly because my love for him was so strong. I admired him, and wanted to be like him, which is the same feelings any young boy has. Now that I can look back and understand the shoes he stood in much better, I have nothing but love for the man. He wasn't a saint, but he was and still is one of my heroes.

I write this as a tribute to my father, and as a rebuke to the fathers out there that have traded puerile sexual activity for the pure love of a woman, and have fostered and abandoned their children in the process.

My father was loyal, hard working, and severely flawed. I can't fault him for that; I am as flawed as he was, just with different scars, scrapes, and bruises. I find myself at once acting so much like him and not wanting to be like him - but to be my own man. Not because I have any dislike of how he acted - I just don't want to be the stereotype; I want to be different. I have a vision of how I should treat my children framed perfectly in my mind - and that is not now how I act. A twisted cacophony of God, my wife, the psychological establishment, and my own feelings rings in my ears telling me a hundred different things about how I should raise my kids. Strangely, the moments that are the most vital are the ones that happen with the least thought. I move in the flow of the spirit of God in my life and the result is children that are grateful to me for disciplining them. Weird. God says, 'I discipline those whom I love' (Proverbs 3:11-12) and 'whoever spares the rod hates their children...' (Proverbs 13:24). We must not be afraid to give our children what they crave - a clear definition of right and wrong based on an objective truth.

History and Howard Zinn

I recently had a conversation with a couple of my neighbors at the bus stop prior to putting my sons on the bus to get them on their way to school. It was a terrific conversation - I love getting to know people - hearing their opinions and ideas and sharing their joys and sorrows and the experiences in their lives. The conversation turned toward education, and how history is taught in our schools. There are significant portions of American history that are not taught, or that are taught incorrectly, and one of the topics brought up was the author Howard Zinn. His history book, A People's History of the United States, is the most popular history book ever written, and it is hugely biased, and in fact wrong on several points. The feedback I got from the people I was speaking with was 'Oh, history is always biased - people write what they want to write that fits their viewpoint.' NO, NO NO! That's how bad historians write! And even if historians do write that way, generally thoughtful people don't accept their biased viewpoints as fact - and we should at the least present both sides of any issue if one side is biased when we are teaching our children. Unfortunately that does not happen in our school systems. There is rarely unbiased teaching going on.

For those of you who have read Howard Zinn, here are some facts about his writing from discoverthenetworks.org:

The author of more than twenty books, Zinn is best known for writing A People's History of the United States (1980), a Marxist tract that describes America as a predatory and repressive capitalist state -- sexist, racist, imperialist -- that is run by a corporate ruling class for the benefit of the rich. The book claims to present American history through the eyes of workers, American Indians, slaves, women, blacks, and populists. A People’s History has sold more than a million copies, making it one of the best-selling history books of all time. Despite its lack of footnotes and other scholarly apparatus, it is one of most influential texts in college classrooms today -- not only in history classes, but also in such fields as economics, political science, literature, and women’s studies. Professor Zinn announced the overtly political agenda of A People’s History in an explanatory coda to the 1995 edition: "I wanted my writing of history and my teaching of history to be a part of social struggle. I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.”

In A People's History, Zinn describes the founding of the American Republic as an exercise in tyrannical control of the many by the few, for greed and profit: “The American Revolution … was a work of genius, and the Founding Fathers ... created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times, and showed future generations of leaders the advantages of combining paternalism with command.” By Zinn’s reckoning, the Declaration of Independence was not so much a revolutionary statement of rights, as it was a cynical means of manipulating popular groups into overthrowing the King to benefit the rich. The rights which the Declaration appeared to guarantee were “limited to life, liberty and happiness for white males” -- and actually for wealthy white males -- because they excluded black slaves and “ignored the existing inequalities in property.” (In other words, they were not socialist rights). Zinn's book contends that Maoist China was “the closest thing, in the long history of that ancient country, to a people’s government, independent of outside control”

Are you kidding? Maoist China? That was the government that started the Cultural Revolution that killed millions and still today suppresses the free expression of speech and religion? For those of you who enjoy Zinn, think again.