Red State Ramblings

On Monday, I shared with you the dominant ideas upheld by our red state and how they have trickled down to affect things important to our family; things like property ownership, parental rights and personal autonomy. Today, I want to share with you three ideas we quickly saw take over in California. Our steady dose of Hollywood via movies and Netflix had many of us suspecting these ideas were quickly spreading, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit when we realized how deep-seated they had already become. We believe these are the reasons people are leaving…

1. Lie #1: Children exist for us, not us for them.
   
   If you have not yet read Katy Faust and Stacy Manning’s book, “Them Before Us – Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement”, you need to. (You can purchase it using the link above.) Sadly, many cultural norms in America have served as a great disservice to children. In their book, Faust and Manning make the point that adults do not exist to have children do hard things for them. Adults are the ones who are supposed to do hard things for children! Getting this wrong is by far the most sinister lie in Hollywood today and it surfaced big time throughout the Covid pandemic.
   
   The stats are out and they are undeniable: children suffered more than any other group as a result of our government’s handling of this pandemic. They have suffered in minute numbers from the virus itself and by the tens of millions from the government’s reaction.
   
   When the pandemic first hit, we told our children they would have to sacrifice very little things like seeing their friends at a birthday party, going to school, and playing at the park for two weeks so that we, as a country, could “flatten the curve.” They understood that it was more important to love our neighbor and go without the freedoms we regularly enjoyed to protect at risk people. I remember having our groceries delivered for the first time. (Grocery delivery service was the most glorious side affect of the pandemic!) I would wipe down every item of food with lysol wipes in hopes of killing the virus. Having grown up with severe childhood asthma, I remember feeling worried that if I were to catch Covid I could be one of the people who die. Two weeks past and, as we all remember, we remained on lockdown. Distance learning began for our children and despite the long, hard hours our wonderful teachers put into doing this new, hard thing as excellently as they could, our kids struggled to focus and didn’t learn much. With everything closed from parks to beaches to, well… literally everything, we spent our days at home and made the most of it. Baking, reading, swimming, house projects… By God’s grace we got thru it and we even had some fun because, although we are certainly not a perfect family, we are a family who loves each other so many sweet memories were made.
   
   But, what about for the kids on lockdown with an abuser for months and months on end? How have they fared in this pandemic? Is the virus more dangerous for them or the decision to close the schools where a teacher could see and report abuse? I will never forget the terror and sadness I felt when I spoke to a wonderful lady at our church in California. She worked for a foster agency and she told me that, since the beginning of the pandemic, reports made to CPS (Child Protective Services) were down 30%. That is a statistic far more terrifying than the 0.00%-0.02% of all child Covid cases resulting in death (according to the American Academy of Pediatrics). That is a cost I, as a mother, am unwilling to blindly sit by and watch, merely hoping will go away. Anxiety, depression and even suicide among children have risen dramatically. And it isn’t because millions of children are walking around without their mother and father they lost to Covid; it is because of all they have had stolen from them by the government’s reaction.
   
   As a busy stay at home mom of four, before the pandemic I couldn’t have cared less who the governor of South Dakota was. But, I cared a lot when my son made his first travel soccer team and every game was canceled. Before the pandemic, I don’t think I could have even identified any other state’s governor, than our own, Gavin Newsom. I didn’t care because they weren’t my governor! But, I cared a lot at my kindergartner’s socially distanced school performance in the school parking lot where little people were forced to wear masks while singing and dancing, never seeing the smiles hiding under the masks of their parents and teachers watching.
   
   In blue states, basic rights for children, like the right to be educated, the right to develop verbally and cognitively (drastically reduced when caretakers wear a mask), the right to take a walk in the sunshine… were stolen at a moment’s notice and, in many places, have yet to be given back! Children living in blue states lost more and were put at greater risk than children living in red states. Time Magazine’s Paymon Rouhanifard rightfully criticized the left’s handling of the pandemic when he bashed his own party in this article he wrote on April 12, 2021: https://time.com/5954077/reopen-schools-blue-states/. He wrote: “Democratic governors, leaders of the largest teachers’ unions and many local Democratic elected officials…have consistently disregarded the overwhelming scientific evidence that opening full-time school is doable and safe…” Why? It would seem the science doesn’t matter very much in some progressive places after all. Control does.
   
   
2. Lie #2: People are stupid, so freedom is dangerous.
   
   I remember worrying when my medical device sales husband began working in the hospitals after the pandemic hit. I was positive I would contract Covid and die because of my pre-existing condition of severe asthma. Thankfully, I was wrong.
   
   In California, I had a close knit group of health conscious friends. I have learned so much from them about eating well to develop a healthy immune system, consistently working out and getting enough sleep. A doctor attended our church and several nurses I could reach out to for answers when something came up. The point is, I, like you, am a rational adult who can think thru what I believe is best for my unique situation. I, like you, have the capacity to make good decisions for myself and my children. The last people I need telling me what I should be doing with my health decisions is the government. I go to trusted people for that!
   
   After it became apparent California wasn’t going to be opening any time soon, my husband and I began questioning why exactly that was, especially since places like South Dakota and Florida, states that had remained opened, didn’t fare any worse than we did Covid-wise. My husband would post an article or an observation he had made while working in over 100 California hospitals and we found that, while many of our friends were asking the same questions, some in the progressive camps would immediately ostracize him. They would call him a science denier and tell us our ideas were dangerous. It was such an odd experience. We were so confused as to why it was wrong to ask questions. We realized in time what many already suspected: this smells a lot like tyranny. French philosopher Simone Weil said: “Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.”
   
   Strict rules and regulations do not have the power to protect us from Covid. The virus seems to come in waves state to state. Sometimes Florida is doing great while California is getting hit hard and vice versa. Our church was not kept safe from the virus when we were told we had to sit outside in the scorching California sun because indoor service was prohibited. We were not protected when our governor banned us from singing. None of this was scientifically motivated. It was entirely about control. The numbers were exacerbated to provoke fear and panic in a very strange, “The end justifies the means”, goal of change. (If you don’t believe me, check out this article showing new data from New York revealing that more than 40% of Covid hospitalizations were people who only tested positive after they were admitted for other reasons. Numbers can be skewed and obviously were when we allowed our government to take over our healthcare system.) https://www.theblaze.com/news/new-data-new-york-covid-hospitalizations?fbclid=IwAR3qWjFTRmUeg4PLLxvTc67cM0Fb7e53o17o9I3Ot4a8uk1RxAGKL3uIk3k
   
   
3. Lie #3: America is evil, so we’ll change the past to control the future.
   
   At the beginning of the pandemic, Governor Newsom said, “There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it pertains to capitalism. So yes, absolutely, we see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/06/04/hanson-never-let-a-plague-go-to-waste/amp/
   
   Servant-hearted leaders use plagues and pandemics and national crises to instill boldness, courage, camaraderie, bravery, and morale. Tyrants use them to instill panic and fear so they can control. Another thing they’ve been known to do is to literally change the narrative of the culture. If we can change the story, we can control how people see themselves in it. If we literally rewrite history to exaggerate the wicked parts and hide anything good, we can be the ones carrying the solution in our other hand, all the while having nothing useful to offer since we are touting a lie about a problem that is not there. One wonders what exactly is the motivation for all of this control? You don’t have to look far to discover the goal…change. Not change in a positive sense, change meaning destruction.
   
   Positive change is always a good thing. But, what constitutes as positive change is very subjective as it is ultimately rooted in worldview. If you are an atheist who grew up with an abusive father shoving the Bible down your throat, you would define taking prayer out of schools as positive change. If you are a pedophile, you would define positive change as the decriminalizing of child sex abuse. I, being an orthodox Christian, define positive change as the ability to freely worship my God, manage my home, and live freely without fear of the government taking away those rights. The problem is my definition of positive change is SO antiquated to Hollywood elites. And it very much matters what those Hollywood elites believe because they will spread their worldview thru the many modes of culture they pump into our hearts and minds every day.
   
   Over the last two years, Hollywood has shown us their desire for fast change on many levels. The three I have observed most frequently are: change in family structure, change in race relations and change in the free market. Many of these people are sincerely hopeful that change in these realms can create an American utopia (or rather post-American sadly). Many of them can spot some of the atrocities of our culture well – things like childhood poverty, cyber bullying, school shootings and racism. They see these atrocities, as I do, and hate them, as I do. However, because of their worldview, (side note…the vast majority of celebrities find orthodox Christianity highly intolerant and antiquated and have embraced the religion of self), they believe we can achieve some strange sense of nirvana yielding a heaven on earth utopia. If we get the haters out of the way (you know, like anyone who still believes in male and female or limited government) we can finally have true peace on earth. The problem is, my worldview tells me that is never going to happen. We are never going to have a society without suffering and sadness because we are sinners! Amazingly, God is merciful and continuously equips His people for their good and His glory throughout the centuries. There is much work to do. The good news is we’ve come a long way in America. The sad news is we’ve reverted back to much of the nonsense we left behind, many times not because we have a genuine problem on our hands, but because the cultural narrative tells us we do and many blindly follow along.
   
   Don’t believe me? Listen to this interview with Dr. Bret Weinstein, former biology professor at Evergreen College in Washington. He considers himself a liberal progressive and, despite having no racist beliefs, attitudes or intentions, was rapidly labeled a racist and literally chased out of the college and threatened with death by students he had never even met before! (The last half of the interview explains why he, a liberal, progressive scientist, is very concerned about the way Covid has been handled by our government.)
   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zP9z5acOa9o
   
   
   Is the Covid pandemic worthy of our attention? Yes! It’s a dangerous, deadly disease for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. My heart aches for everyone who lost someone they love due to Covid. Has the Covid pandemic proven to be worthy of the self-inflicted cost to our nation? NO!
   
   One of the best things that has come from this pandemic is how we are now able to see in real time the way national crises will be handled in our individual states. If you believe your state’s government responded to the pandemic in rational ways that protected you and your family, I am so happy for you because you don’t need to move! But, if you are among the literally hundreds of thousands of people who have left blue states to flee to red as a direct result of the crazy lockdowns and mandates in your state, you’re in good company. I pray that together, we can build a culture led by servants united in truth for positive change for the good of children first and us last.
   
   No matter where you live, may grace and truth abound in your heart and in your home!