No, Demonstrations Today Not Like the 1960s

The current demonstrations on college campuses against Israel remind some of the unrest on college campuses during the 1960s. But the comparison is not a good one. The unrest of the 1960s was defined by the war in Vietnam and by the Civil Rights Movement. Both had practical, personal impact on young Americans in their own country. American soldiers were fighting and dying in Vietnam. There was real, life-and-death impact on all Americans, and certainly on young Americans. The military draft was still operative then. Despite various deferments, including deferment for university attendance, the draft was still a reality and was a looming presence for all college-age Americans. They knew they could be drafted and had friends and friends of friends who were. The official number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam stands at 58,220. Although there were legitimate moral concerns about American involvement in this war, the moral concerns were accompanied by young Americans having real skin in this game. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s also had real personal moral impact on all Americans. And youth are always highly sensitive to the moral failings around them. The reality of segregation and Jim Crow started getting national attention with the Civil Rights Movement, the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other more violent groups in the movement. In contrast to the woke activism of today, which is totally political in character, the Civil Rights Movement was led by a charismatic and articulate Black pastor and had a religious, moral tone rooted in the Christian church. Anyone that questions this should read, or reread, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963. But King’s moral appeal was to an America very different than today. In 1965, per Gallup, 70% of Americans said religion was personally “very important” to them. In 2023, by contrast, only 45% of Americans say religion is “very important.” In 1962, per Gallup, 46% of Americans said they attended religious services over the last seven days. In 2023, this was down to 32%. During this period there were two major wars involving Israel and the surrounding Arab states. In 1967, Israel prevailed in the Six-Day War, which began with preemptive action by Israel against the Egyptian army mobilized for attack, and subsequent aggression by Syria in the North and Jordan in the East. In 1973, Israel again prevailed against attacks on these same fronts. In 1967, per Gallup, 45% of Americans supported Israel against 4% who supported the Arab states, with 26% with no opinion. In 1973, 48% of Americans expressed support for Israel versus 6% expressing support for the Arab states and 24% with no opinion. Support for Israel among Americans during this period was one-sided and clear. But, again, America today is very, very different. Our young people in the 1960s understood what personal responsibility is about. On a national level, in the 1960s, all young Americans faced the reality of military conscription. Today, regarding national obligation and service, there are virtually no demands on our youth. Now President Joe Biden is even erasing their student loan obligations. On a religious, moral level, religion then held a much stronger hold on the nation. Religion teaches and inspires a culture where individuals have a sense they belong to and have obligation to something beyond their own egotistical inclinations. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as religion has weakened and disappeared from our culture, it has been replaced by politics and the welfare state. The end of it all is we now have a generation of youth insulated from all sense of national and religious and moral personal responsibility. So now they demonstrate in support of terrorists and against the only free country in the Middle East that shares the very values that made our own country great.

In Defense of Speaker Mike Johnson

Author Herman Wouk captured well how to understand heroism. “Heroes are not supermen; they are good men who embody — by the cast of destiny — the virtue of their whole people in a great hour,” observed Wouk. We have today an American hero in the name of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Anyone with eyes open knows the world today is a very dangerous place. Johnson, a conservative Republican and a devout Christian, knows that the way for it to become even more dangerous is for the leader of the free world to withdraw from its responsibilities as such. In the face of threats from some within his own party, in the face of the possibility of a purge like that which happened to his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, Johnson stepped up, rounded up 101 Republican votes in the House and, together with Democrats, passed a $95 billion military aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. As a Christian, Johnson understands that there is no understanding of what freedom is without appreciation that there is good and evil in this world. Our tendency in our country is to emphasize individual rights when we think about freedom. But the equal and opposite side of rights is responsibilities. Without responsibility, whether as individuals or as a nation, freedom is gone. As President Ronald Reagan famously observed, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” Speaking to reporters after the vote, Johnson noted that this is a “critical time” and that “Xi (China) and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil.” This is not a matter of our nation aspiring to be the world’s policeman. It is matter of knowing that the force of evil cannot be ignored and the price of believing that it can be ignored only grows and becomes increasingly more dangerous. Is this a matter of focusing abroad at the expense of what is happening at home? Certainly not. If a hero, in the words of Herman Wouk, embodies the “virtue” of his or her people, how do we define the virtue of the American people? It’s about the principles of a free nation under God. We also face great danger at home as we have departed from these principles. The $95 billion that will go in aid abroad is peanuts compared to what we waste at home in spending programs that do nothing. The Biden administration has appropriated $80 billion to the IRS to bolster tax collection. But at the same time, Biden has submitted a 2025 budget to Congress increasing federal spending by some $800 billion. We are now trillions of dollars in the red as result of bankrupt entitlement programs that are basically socialism. These programs are gushing red ink because they are not about, and never have been about, American principles of freedom and personal responsibility. We, of course, need to assure that those that immigrate to our country come to embrace the principles that make our country great. But Republicans need to contend with a president and his party who have long abandoned those principles. Enough Democrats do seem to understand the importance of defending our principles abroad, and here Republicans and Democrats must work together. So it’s not a matter of either/or. Freedom is about knowing that we have choices, that there is good and evil, and we must fight evil everywhere by choosing the good. Johnson has done us all a favor through his principles and courage. We have great challenges at home, but we cannot ignore what’s happening around us. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Americans Are Not Seeking Out Middle Ground

A Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Sen. Mitt Romney regarding the demise of the No Labels political party initiative tells us as much about Romney, and why he failed to ever become a national leader, as it does about the failure of the No Labels effort. No Labels defined its mission “to support centrism and bipartisanship.” Romney defines this effort as seeking out the “sensible middle voices” in American politics. My view is that No Labels failed because of its very incorrect assumption that what Americans seek is a so-called middle ground, or even that a middle ground exists, on issues that most trouble the nation today. No Labels was wrong in its assessment of what the nation wants and needs, and Romney is wrong. Former President Richard Nixon once observed that many make the mistake of thinking that conflict is the result of misunderstanding rather than difference of belief. When America split and descended into civil war in the 1850s and1860s, it was not because of the failure of sensible middle voices to emerge. It was because there were many in the country who believed that slavery was not only OK but desirable. It was because some believed that Black Africans who were enslaved were not even human beings. Where is the middle ground, the “sensible middle voices,” on slavery? Slavery was not about misunderstanding or lack of communication. It was about conflict between very different sets of beliefs. This is what is happening in our country today. Over the years, the country has become increasingly polarized, with very different views about what is true and not true and even what the country is about. In the most recent Gallup polling on patriotism, only 39% say they are “extremely proud” to be an American. Only 67% say that are “extremely/very proud” to be an American. Twenty years ago, 90% said they were “extremely/very proud” to be an American. On issues of great concern to and impact on the country, opinions are deeply divided. Gallup reports that the divide between Republicans and Democrats on how much power the federal government should have has increased by 50 points over the last 20 years. The divide between Republicans and Democrats on the nature and cause of global warming has increased by 33 points, on satisfaction with K-12 education has increased by 30 points, on whether abortion should be legal under any circumstances by 30 points, on the importance of foreign trade by 29 points, and about immigration by 29 points. Where is the “sensible middle” on these issues? The answer is there is none. The different points of view emerge from very different views of the world, very different views of what is or is not true. The great struggle in our nation today is about whether the founders’ vision of a free nation under God, with limited power of the national government, will be restored and harnessed to today’s challenges. Or if we will continue in the direction of secular humanism, Godlessness and socialism. Abraham Lincoln captured today’s reality, as neither No Labels nor Mitt Romney could do. Lincoln said in 1858: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. There is a reason why Donald Trump came out of nowhere in 2016 to win the presidency, running on the theme “Make America Great Again.” The struggle today is between those who want to recapture our founding values and principles. And those who want to destroy them. The House will not fall. We will become all one thing, or all the other.

Why Do Americans, UN Support Hamas Terrorists?

Most recent Gallup polling in March shows that 36% of Americans “approve of Israeli military action in Gaza” and 50% disapprove. Last November, a month after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 innocent Israeli civilians, 55% approved of the military action that Israel initiated. What has happened over the last few months that now barely more than a third of Americans support the clear case of the right of Israel to defend its country? We might also ask why only 55% last November supported Israel’s military action to defend itself. Let’s again recall that Americans were strongly united to condemn and retaliate against the horror of the terrorist attack against our own country on Sept. 11, 2001, that took the lives of almost 3,000 American citizens. The 1,200 Israeli victims of terror, in that tiny country of some 9.5 million, equates to more than 40,000 in our country of over 330 million. Why is it not equally clear that Israel must defend itself as we must defend our homeland? Per Brown University’s Costs of War project, total casualties in Afghanistan, and subsequently in Iraq, as result of U.S. retaliatory military action in the war against terror, amounted to 177,000, some six times greater than casualties reported in Gaza. We must also note, again, that we’re not just talking about murder, regarding the 1,200 Israelis that were killed. We’re talking about subhuman brutality, documented in video, in which rape, beheadings and desecration of bodies occurred. The Hamas terrorists celebrated with joy every Israeli murder and atrocity. Hamas has long been recognized by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Why are Americans not united in condemning the sickening murder and brutality of the Hamas terrorists, demanding the release of the now estimated 130 hostages they still hold, which include six U.S. citizens? How could our country abstain in the recent United Nations Security Council vote demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, with no condemnation of Hamas terrorism and with no demand of unilateral release by Hamas of the hostages they hold? What is the disconnect that can explain the absence of uniform support among Americans for clear-cut action by Israel to defend itself against brutal terrorists, committed to the destruction of its state and homeland? Freedom House is a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that issues an annual report of the state of freedom around the world. Freedom House, in this annual report, grades countries worldwide regarding the extent to which they are free. Per Freedom House’s methodology, each country is graded on a scale of 1-100, based on political rights and civil liberties in that country. In the Middle East region, there is only one country that Freedom House scores as free -- Israel. Out of a possible 100, Israel scores 74. For perspective, the United States has a score of 83. Looking at the Middle East neighborhood where Israel exists, we see it standing alone as free in a sea of unfree countries. Freedom House scores for Israel’s neighbors: Jordan 33, Egypt 18, Lebanon 42, Syria 1, Iraq 30, Saudi Arabia 8. Why does the clear lack of freedom across the Middle East not seem to bother anyone while the only free country in the region elicits protests and condemnation? Why, 76 years after Israel’s founding, and its miraculous emergence as a modern thriving nation -- a world center of innovation and technology, boasting 13 Nobel prize winners -- do many still reject its right to exist? Amid this craziness, let’s recall, again, that Israel is the only Jewish country in the world. There are 49 countries with majority Muslim populations. There are 15 million Jews in the world and 1.8 billion Muslims. Yet, worldwide, there remains antipathy to this lone, tiny yet successful-way-beyond-its-size Jewish country. Something is wrong. Very wrong.