Let me begin by affirming that I am a believer in Christ’s injunction, when asked to determine the appropriate punishment for an adulterous woman, to “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). This simple statement of a harsh life truth—that we are all sinners to some degree—dissuaded the mob and spared the woman’s life, which allowed her an opportunity to redeem herself. We enrich ourselves and others when we find the strength and wisdom within ourselves to allow those who have harmed themselves or others to have a second chance, and we should always be willing to help up those who have fallen down.

If they are worthy.

Life is a tough teacher, and one of the saddest lessons of adulthood is that our country and world are full of awful people. We must not, for our own good and the good of others, deliberately disable our critical thinking skills, which is a foolish act, to extend any unearned grace to those who care nothing for the damage their actions cause to others—and allow them to continue to inflict pain on the unwary or unprotected. 

There are plenty of addicts who will continue to destroy the lives of their families and friends, loads of thieves who prey on our credulity and innocence, millions upon millions of violent individuals who feel only contempt for those too weak to defend themselves, and a hefty slice of sociopaths who believe they have every right to bully and lie their ways through their lives. To these horrid humans a second chance is simply a second welcome opportunity to take full advantage of the sometimes unfathomable goodness (or naïveté) of those who can neither understand nor recognize evil—even when it might be, quite literally, killing them or those whom they love.

Perhaps the most pressing problem facing America today is that a majority of our citizenry are being compelled to accept or endorse ideas and actions they find unethical, immoral—or just plain crazy—by the addicts, thieves, violent criminals, and sociopaths who are now determined to drag us down to their level in the name of equity.

We must recognize that the core problem with extolling equity above every other value is that we are cursed with an amazingly diverse array of stupid or duplicitous people and an equally diverse range of foolish and destructive ideas. Our nation’s amazing diversity is a strength only when it is coupled with a focus on both meritocracy and individual character, a notion which has neatly and effectively been recast by our hard working thought police as (wait for it!) a pernicious form of intolerance.

It should be little surprise, therefore, that insisting on tolerance of the intolerable has turned into an amazingly effective tool for excusing every form of mendacity known to humanity. We are today stuck, unsurprisingly, with too many truly horrible leaders who have ridden the totalitarian tolerance train to positions of catastrophic influence over our daily lives and the direction of our country while mouthing the approved platitudes about how diversity—not of thought but of skin tone—is our strength.

Perhaps the only comfort we can take from our situation is that our allies in Europe are even worse off than we are when it comes to drinking the poisonous swill of Cultural Marxism.

The opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics this week, for example, featured among other absurdities a tableau of Drag Queens reenacting Leonardo DaVinci’s depiction of The Last Supper, which Christians worldwide were apparently supposed to take in good cheer because complaining about this mockery of their faith would demonstrate their intolerance. Our mass media culture is so incredibly Woke that we are now expected to smile and say thank you when the political and cultural Left spits on traditions and beliefs that have defined Western culture for two millennia. To say that nothing is sacred when it comes to trashing others in the name of tolerance is now, quite literally, the truth.

The circular logic of our worship of tolerance, which is explicitly and ingeniously designed to denigrate dissenters, is now entrenched in our laws, schools, and culture to such a degree that institutional censorship and defensive self-censorship is a daily occurrence in America today. To be honest is to be a target, and anyone hoping to avoid harassment, threats, and career suicide shuts their mouth—and keeps it shut—because surveillance and informers are everywhere we look today. American freedom of speech is, at this point in our nation’s history, only a memory.

All of this concerted control of our thoughts and expression is today an even bigger problem because we are only a few months away from what might well be the most consequential elections in America since the founding of our country. The need to speak up and make one’s voice heard has likely never been greater because we are being asked to choose between two diametrically opposed futures for our republic. To allow ourselves to be manipulated or forced into silence simply cannot be allowed to happen, and we need to be willing to risk all if we want an American government that is still of, by, and for the people to survive. Already the mainstream media is characterizing any criticism of the Democrats’ presumptive candidate, Vice President Harris, as “far right attacks”upon democracy, so it seems the effort to silence dissent is well underway—and it will be effective if Americans are frightened into remaining quiet.

We cannot choose the cowardice of complicity with evil if we want a nation that embodies the best that a combination of meritocracy and diversity can provide. We did not become the greatest and strongest nation the world has ever known by standing mute, and we must all be willing to embrace honesty that is intolerant of lies, stupidity, and immorality if we want America to survive for another 248 glorious years.

So open your eyes and your mouth and sing out. Speech and writing that is open and unafraid will always do a better job sorting out the issues of the day than the narrow and timid dialogue that we have been forced to accept by the censorious elites who believe they know better than those Americans who work and die to defend our country.