Daily Broadside | Tim Scott: “Hear Me Clearly: America Is Not a Racist Nation”

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 3:1
Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David.

Put another week and month into the history books. It’s Friday and the end of April. When no one is looking I play bagpipes in a kilt.

I wrote yesterday about the Big Guy’s speech to an audience about half as large as Donald Trump’s first SOTU speech drew. The Resident’s 81 million “voters” can’t stand to listen to him either I guess. I sat through it because it’s culturally and politically relevant and fits with the purpose of this blog. Otherwise I would’ve just read the reports.

What I didn’t watch, and wish I had stuck around for, was the Republican Party’s rebuttal given by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). So I watched it today and, just as many others have said, it was an earnest and principled response to the pablum that Joey “You Ain’t Black” McMumbles fed us.

I want to note first that Tim Scott speaks plainly throughout his speech about his Christian faith.

“This past year, I’ve watched COVID attack every rung of the ladder that helped me up. So many families have lost parents and grandparents too early. So many small businesses have gone under. Becoming a Christian transformed my life — but for months, too many churches were shut down. Most of all, I am saddened that millions of kids have lost a year of learning when they could not afford to lose a single day.”

He refers to his “prayin’ momma,” original sin, and ends his speech with lyrics from a worship song. Faith, culture and politics—all rolled into one speech!

In his rebuttal, Scott first took Biden to task for promising unity, that he would be a president for “all Americans,” as if Trump been the divisive one. But as is quickly becoming clear, it’s Resident Biden and his Band of Junior Commies who are waging war on us.

He promised to unite a nation. To lower the temperature. To govern for all Americans, no matter how we voted. That was the pitch. You just heard it again. But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes. We need policies and progress that bring us closer together.

But three months in, the actions of the president and his party are pulling us further apart.

Scott then set the theme of his speech: “I want to have an honest conversation about common sense and common ground. About this feeling that our nation is sliding off its shared foundation and how we move forward together.” I don’t think anyone on this side of the aisle would deny that it’s more than a feeling that our nation “is sliding off it’s shared foundation.”

I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. He’s not a super-polished speaker, but he’s sincere, thoughtful and a voice of reason.

The most poignant part of his speech, in my opinion, was when he addressed the issue of race relations in our country. Yes, he says, racism does exist in the United States.

Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than in our discussions of race. I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason; to be followed around a store while I’m shopping.

I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it, I thought. Later, I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example. I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called “Uncle Tom” and the N-word — by “progressives.” By liberals.

This is true. In fact, as if to help him prove his point, “Uncle Tim” was trending on Twitter for 12-hours before being pulled down by Jackboot Dorsey and his Marxist minions. Scott then exposes the nonsense behind the division.

When America comes together, we’ve made tremendous progress. But powerful forces want to pull us apart. A hundred years ago, kids in classrooms were taught the color of their skin was their most important characteristic — and if they looked a certain way, they were inferior.

Today, kids are being taught that the color of their skin defines them again — and if they look a certain way, they’re an oppressor. From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress at all, by doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal.

You know this stuff is wrong. Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.

His admonition that you don’t fight discrimination with discrimination reminds me of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” But the anti-Americans aren’t interested in logic, reason or reality. They’re only interested in power and forcibly cramming their Marxist ideology down our collective throats.

Scott draws his speech to a close with an uplifting vision of what America is and can be.

Our best future won’t come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams. It will come from you — the American people. Black, Hispanic, white, and Asian. Republican and Democrat. Brave police officers and black neighborhoods.

We are not adversaries. We are family! We are all in this together.

And we get to live in the greatest country on Earth. The country where my grandfather, in his 94 years, saw his family go from cotton to Congress in one lifetime. So I am more than hopeful — I am confident — that our finest hour is yet to come.

Original sin is never the end of the story. Not in our souls, and not for our nation. The real story is always redemption.

It’s a compelling story and one that our country desperately needs to hear. But to read the hostile responses to Scott’s speech suggests that those who need to hear it have rejected it.

Tim Scott is a living example that America’s defining feature isn’t racism, but personal liberty and responsibility. Don’t let the loudmouths have the last word.

Have a good weekend.

Daily Broadside | The Poisoned Verdict in the Derek Chauvin Case

Daily Verse | 2 Kings 21:9
But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

Mid-week and the big story is that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty yesterday on all charges against him. Chauvin had been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The jury delivered its verdict after 10 hours of deliberations over two days.

I didn’t listen to any of the trial, so any information I have about it is second- or third-hand news reports or commentary, just like the vast majority of Americans. I also don’t know the technical ins and outs of the legal differences between second-degree unintentional murder and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, although on the surface it seems understandable. So I don’t have much of a leg to stand on to dispute the jury’s findings.

But I do know this: Derek Chauvin wasn’t on trial for murder. He was on trial for being a racist.

Oh, technically he was standing trial for murdering George Floyd, but that’s not why the story stayed in the public eye for the last year. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because Chauvin is white and Floyd is black. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because Floyd’s death ignited violent protests involving Black Lives Matter, Inc., in multiple cities across the nation that caused billions of dollars in damage and killed 19 people. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because of claims that police are racist and that “America has its knee on people of color.”

George Floyd’s death and alleged racist motivations have been inextricably conflated together. The story is that George Floyd was murdered because he was black.

George Floyd’s death was claimed to be murder and the murder was claimed to be driven by racism. The Left wouldn’t separate the two then and won’t separate the two now. After the verdict was announced, Black Lives Matter, Inc., wrote, “But let’s be clear — This verdict does not change what we know all too well: White supremacy still exists.” Resident Biden stayed awake long enough to say, “[Floyd’s murder] ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism. Systemic racism — a stain on our nation’s soul.” Jesse Jackson, race monger extraordinaire said, “The killing continues. We must break the backbone of legal lynching forever. Police killing people is getting away with legal lynching.”

In the minds of the progressive Left, then, a guilty verdict for murder in this case means Chauvin is guilty of racism.

But racist motivations were not proven in court. The prosecution didn’t provide evidence for racism and the defense didn’t provide evidence disproving racism. Racism can’t be proven in this case unless Derek Chauvin confesses that he kneeled on George Floyd’s neck because he hates black men and wanted to kill Floyd.

Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart).

1 Kings 8:39;

Racism is an attitude, a deformity of character, a worldview, a matter of the heart. It shows up in words and actions and nothing Derek Chauvin did the day George Floyd died suggests that he was provoked by Floyd’s race to murder him. There is simply no evidence for it. All of the officers involved were patient and non-aggressive as Floyd resisted arrest for more than eight minutes and claimed to be claustrophobic and refused to comply with commands to get in the squad car.

Derek Chauvin couldn’t get a fair trial because the case was poisoned by accusations of racism from the start and then reinforced by violence and political clowns like Mad Maxine Waters demanding a guilty verdict. The only appropriate considerations should have been the evidence for and against his responsibility for Floyd’s death.

Rightly or wrongly, the jury decided that Chauvin was responsible for Floyd’s death. Perhaps he was. But we don’t know, and can’t know, whether Chauvin was motivated by racism. Only God knows that.

Undeterred, however, the Left let us know that racist policing was being decided in this case. And on that, unfortunately for them (and for us), the jury is still out.