Witnessing how we as Americans responded to the terrorist bombing in Boston and the manhunt which successfully concluded Friday night, and the failure of the president’s gun control agenda in the Senate, I’m reminded of several points I’ve made in the past, and nothing this week has changed my mind about them. If anything, they were reinforced.

We are more divided as a nation than we have been in decades.

We no longer have a common American point of reference.

Politics, particularly at the federal level, is utterly incapable of solving any of our problems going forward.

When I was with the Department of Homeland Security, we would often discuss the likelihood of the next major terrorist attack on American soil, and my thoughts would always go to how Americans would respond to it. Would we rally together and set aside our differences to present a united front to those who would do us harm, as we did after 9/11, if only briefly?

When my colleagues and I spoke of this a decade ago, I predicted that the next attack would not bring about a show of unity, and that instead we would be looking for someone to blame.

Why?

At the time, I felt that 9/11 was a surprise attack, on the order of Pearl Harbor, and no one imagined terrorists turning passenger airplanes into guided missiles to strike at our nation’s financial, military and political landmarks. The next attack, I surmised, would be greeted with recriminations by an American public that would expect its government to be more vigilant now that we know our enemy and what they are capable of doing.

I was right about us looking for someone to blame the next time. I didn’t anticipate, however, that the reason would be because we’ve grown to hate each other.

Yes, we hate each other. And it’s not the kind of hate that lives on the fringes of the political spectrum, either. It’s hate gone mainstream.

Why, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing in Boston, were people in the media, people who have been blessed with a platform, the power to shape opinions, and the responsibility as stewards of the national trust, wishing that the perpetrators of the bombing were white, right-wing, members of the Tea Party, or some combination thereof?

What could possibly have motivated that kind of thinking in the midst of tragedy?

Is their contempt for people who do not believe as they do so great that they couldn’t even show the victims of the bombing the dignity of restraint while they lay on the asphalt of Boylston Street, dead or maimed from the blast?

And my conservative friends don’t get a pass, either. Many of us wanted the terrorists to be Middle Eastern or Muslim so we could denigrate our political opponents as appeasers and anti-American.

I didn’t speculate because, in this broken world in which we live, either of these wished-for scenarios were plausible. If that was the level of thinking at which they were speculating, that would have been one thing, but that’s not why they were proffering their opinions. Each faction hates the other so much that they believe their opposites are truly capable of such evil, and they hoped the discovery of the suspects would validate their hatred.

The fight over gun control, which has been raging since the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, is also reflective of the hate between us.

Implicit, and sometimes not so implicit, in the criticism of those who believe the Second Amendment to be a civil right, not to be infringed upon by the government, is the notion that they don’t care about the children who were murdered that day, which is a grave insult.

Gun rights advocates counter that their opponents’ sudden desire to defend children doesn’t extend to the inner city or the abortion clinic, and they have no qualms about dismissing the lives of children of color and the unborn.

When the background check legislation failed in the U.S. Senate last week, one would expect the president to be frustrated with the outcome, but he could have said that, although he had not argued persuasively enough to win the day this time, he would redouble his efforts to persuade the people and their representatives of the goodness of his proposals, and the work would begin immediately.

Instead, he excoriated those who voted against the proposal, including some in his own party. It’s as if the thought never occurred to him that someone could disagree with him on principle – no, there must be some nefarious reason for this! – or that the process of change is a marathon, not a sprint, requiring the accumulation and preservation of political capital.

At its core, our hatred of one another stems from a lack of common beliefs or the presumption of goodwill. Without those two things, we will be a nation defined solely by name and political geography.

And if we are to find our unanimity as a nation again, it won’t be through the political process which, in my opinion, is irredeemably divisive and corrupt. We are allowing what’s happening in Washington to poison how we deal with each other in the real world.

We must begin in our own backyards, getting to know each other as human beings, and not caricatures which are easy to dismiss and demean.

We must occasionally disconnect from social media, which insulates us from having to acknowledge the humanity of those with whom we disagree, and discover once again what we have in common – our dreams, our jobs, our families, our friends, our communities, the things that matter to us every day.

We must learn once again that we agree on more than we disagree, and when we differ on the means to accomplishing those things upon which we agree, we must work through those differences like adults. We need to restore our sense of community and connectedness, not the contrived “community” of political correctness, conformity or externally imposed values, but community which springs from the ground up, and is based on a genuine regard for our neighbors and our local community.

If we don’t do this, we’re sailing into a storm for which we are not prepared. My faith in Jesus Christ gives me peace regardless of what lies ahead, but I believe there will be a reckoning in our lifetimes, and it will not be pleasant. I am convinced of this only because we have not been responsive to words of warning, and like coastal residents who choose to hold hurricane parties rather than evacuate ahead of the storm, it may take a catastrophic event to wake us up.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14, New International Version)

At a recent breakfast for our men’s ministry, we were asked to break into small groups so we could meet someone we didn’t know. Since these “icebreakers” are often filled with awkward silence, our pastor gave us a list of questions we could pose to one another, accomplishing the dual purpose of learning more about each other and covering up those pregnant pauses!

One question in particular struck me, and the answer I came up with surprised me a bit, because my passions and interests are many, so I thought it would be difficult to zero in on just one. The question was:

What in life currently breaks your heart to the point that you’d give up some personal things or time to make a difference in this area?

Try answering that question over pancakes and bacon! I didn’t have a lot of time to formulate a response, but this is what came to my mind:

“The way adults, individually and collectively, put self-interest before the needs of children.”

Children in the world are suffering from poverty, substandard education, hunger, and physical, emotional and sexual abuse, just to name a few, and that is if they get to live outside their mother’s womb. All of these problems are preventable, and all can be traced to a policy decision or action by adults which put their desires ahead of what would be best for children.

One of the core tenets of true justice is to protect the weak and defenseless from harm, and we are not only not protecting them, we are the primary source of harm to them. As a Christian, I believe we are accountable to the Lord for how we treat “the least of these,” and Jesus Himself is explicit in His condemnation of those who would lead children astray.

One of the most heartbreaking scenes I’ve ever witnessed was in a video for world missions that I watched during a Thursday small group session at my church. A little girl, south Asian in appearance, is walking on a sidewalk in a busy part of an unnamed city, carrying something on her back. She stops and looks at a spot on the sidewalk, and unfurls what turns out to be her bedding, which she carefully places on the sidewalk and, after a couple of adjustments, lays her head on her pillow for sleep. While she lies there, adults are walking by her as if she’s invisible.

That image haunts me to this day. That little girl ought to be curled up in her mother’s or father’s lap, her head resting on her parent’s chest as she sleeps.

Children ought to be held and hugged and loved, but not only are millions of them neglected, millions endure suffering and harm at the hands of adults, and not all of the acts of harm are visibly abusive or violent. As despicable as they are, those are the easy ones to detect.

Half of all sexual abuse victims are children, and of the 10 million children who witness domestic violence each year, about half of them are the victims of violence in their very own homes.

Over 300,000 American children are at risk for sexual exploitation, and 1.2 million children worldwide are victims of human trafficking. Half of the people bought and sold across international borders are children, and most of them are destined for the sex trade. One of the horrific outcomes of legalized prostitution in the Netherlands is an increase in child trafficking and child sex workers.

As many as 300,000 children are forcibly recruited to serve in government armies or rebel forces. If they are not fighting, they are dying of disease or hunger, or both, as soldiers prevent food, medicine or other essentials from reaching people in “enemy” territory. Acts of violence against children in war zones, including rape, are commonplace.

We read about these atrocities, or we witness them on the news or in Internet images or videos, and a great outcry arises, and calls go out to raise money or lead marches “for the children.” Yet we harm children daily with our ham-handed policy decisions which deprive them of the opportunity for a normal, healthy life.

Children are often the unintended victims of government policies enacted by self-centered adults who believe children are either a trophy, a prop, a punishment, or a hindrance to their desires, rather than human beings who are adored in the sight of God and have rights as significant as those adults claim.

What Washington bureaucrat thought it was a good idea to disincentivize men from being in the home with the children they made, and the mother they made them with, by only paying out government aid if the man wasn’t in the house? Today, more than two-thirds of children born in the United States are born to women under 30, and more than half of them are born to unwed mothers. While the percentage of children born out of wedlock in the black community is a tragic 73 percent, this phenomenon knows no racial boundaries; four in 10 children in America are born to single mothers.

The damage to children has been enormous. Children born into single parent families are four times more likely to be poor than the children in two-parent homes, and they fail in school and suffer from behavioral and emotional problems at higher rates as well. They are also more likely to fall into crime and eventually end up in the prison system.

As government tries to act as a primary provider for children, presuming itself to be a viable substitute for a parent, it corrupts people who may otherwise be compelled to do right by their offspring. Parents in impoverished areas deliberately remove their children from literacy programs because they want to continue receiving checks from the government for children with learning disabilities. What kind of life lies ahead for these children? Is it right that they are doomed to lives of permanent despair through no fault of their own?

Research consistently points to marriage as the main bulwark against child poverty, and the argument that a child doesn’t need either a mother or a father is laid low by the evidence.

America, however, has been chipping away at the institution of marriage since the 1960s, and we ceased fighting for a culture of marriage because it would require us to acknowledge the complementary roles of a mother and a father in a permanent relationship which binds them to the children they brought into the world, thereby ensuring their safety and security.

That would mean putting our romantic or erotic desires in a subordinate role to what’s best for children, and we rationalize, obfuscate, deflect, ignore, demonize and mythologize to avoid doing that, even to the point of declaring a right to children so we can be validated, rather than defending the rights of children to have a mother and a father at home.

It’s one thing for children to come into the world through unanticipated circumstances, but it’s another to deliberately design policy that writes out of existence the one adult sexual union that would assure children of protection and love from the human beings who created them. And to what end? If adults want to couple and decouple at will, they have the liberty to do so, but why don’t they leave the children out of it, and leave something for them that will help them flourish?

In yet another policy arena, adults seem hell-bent on keeping our children trapped in unsafe schools where they learn nothing and, once again, their justification appears to have less to do with what will most benefit the children, and more to do with the adults who gain from maintaining the status quo. Children aren’t fooled by our false piety toward them, however, and during a debate on Capitol Hill over renewing a voucher program that brought hope to District of Columbia school children, most of them black, one was heard to remark, “Why don’t the congressmen who look like us want us to go to better schools?” Why would any adult stand in the way of a child getting the best education possible?

I haven’t even touched on the tragedy of abortion, which has ended millions of children’s lives before they were born, and adults are increasingly comfortable with declaring that children should not only be eliminated according to the parent’s whims while in the womb, but that they have no right to life until they become self-aware, meaning their lives can be terminated by their parents even after birth, should they deem it necessary to their quality of life.

Jesus said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). It’s really simple to me. Big people should take care of little people, and if we don’t do it, then we deserve the judgment that comes upon us.

In 1640, Virginia’s first recorded legislation barred black people from owning guns. From that point forward, history is replete with examples of gun control laws aimed exclusively at disarming blacks, which made it easier to enslave them and, in the years following slavery, to terrorize them and lynch them without meaningful resistance. The law-abiding black citizen has been and continues to be a victim of those who would deny them the right to keep and bear arms.

One of former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s most searing childhood memories was of her father and his friends, sitting at the head of the cul-de-sac leading into their neighborhood, armed and ready to defend their families against Knight Riders of the Ku Klux Klan. She said if their guns had been registered with the local authorities, they would have been confiscated, and their neighborhood would have been an easy target for these domestic terrorists. Because of her experience, she declared, “I am a Second Amendment absolutist.”

Given the racism inherent in America’s gun control history, it was appropriate that the landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case which determined the Second Amendment to be fully applicable to state and local jurisdictions was filed under the name of Otis McDonald, a retired maintenance engineer and a black man whose home in Chicago had been broken into five times, and whose neighborhood had become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. When the city of Chicago denied him a handgun to defend himself and his home, he and three other Chicago residents filed a lawsuit which led to the Supreme Court ruling in their favor, and in support of the Second Amendment.

The city of Chicago, to its discredit, continues to look for ways to violate the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, while criminals with illegally obtained firearms are killing people, many of them innocent bystanders, in record numbers. As of the end of January 2013, 40 people had been gunned down in Chicago, a grim start after a year which saw 500 homicides. All the gun-control measures in effect in Chicago are, frankly, ineffective, and the people who are suffering the most, whatever their intent, are black people who are being denied, once again, the right to protect themselves, this time from predators and criminals.

Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey says, “Listen to me, the people dying in Chicago, the people dying in Newark are not being done with law-abiding gun owners. We do not need to go after the guns. A law-abiding mentally stable American, that’s not America’s problem.”

It is indeed tragic that incidents like Columbine, Aurora and Newtown take place, and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill is a worthwhile objective, if it is possible to enforce such a provision without violating yet another set of rights. I would remind people that, here in Virginia, the state government used mental health information to forcibly sterilize 7,325 people under the Eugenical Sterilization Act between 1924 and 1979. Government is an agent of force, and we should always proceed with caution when surrendering our rights for safety and security.

The mass shootings that make the news and stir calls to action, however, pale before the carnage taking place in the black community, with more than 7,000 blacks murdered each year, usually by other blacks. Blacks account for more than 50 percent of the homicide victims, and they represent most of the victims of violent personal crimes. Yet absolutely none of the weapons bans being called for by legislators in Washington would budge the needle on these statistics.

Once again, Washington is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” There are harder questions about the breakdown of the family, the devaluaton of life, and the diminution of virtue that, if answered, would do more to curb the violence in our communities than any gun ban. But these are difficult and long-term issues, and they don’t appeal to the soundbite culture or the need for politicians to gain immediate gratification so they can move on to the next issue.

If the politicians won’t address the hard questions, and the police cannot protect us, the least we can do is demand that the government not take away our ability to protect ourselves. Benjamin Franklin said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We know that gun control will not guarantee our safety, but preserving our liberties under the Second Amendment gives us a fighting chance, and we should err on the side of liberty.

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.
~ Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General

“A nation of cowards.” Pretty harsh words coming from our newly confirmed attorney general, not yet one month removed from the inauguration of the first black president of the United States. Holder, himself a symbol of achievement as the first black to serve as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, was commemorating Black History Month by criticizing our inability, individually and collectively, to speak frankly on matters of race. Such a dialogue, he opined, is the only “way we can hasten the day when we truly become one America.”

Mr. Holder took a lot of heat for his comments and I was one of those bringing the heat:

[I]f we are a nation of cowards, Mr. Holder, it’s because the black community doesn’t encourage honesty but rather demands fealty to one worldview. If you want to eradicate cowardice in the national discussion on race, how about starting with us?

My beef with him wasn’t with the intent of his statement–I, too, welcome the day when we can be honest with each other about race without incurring each other’s wrath. The problems we have with, and perceptions we have of, one another can’t be addressed if we are guarded in our disclosures and refuse to show our hand.

No, my objection was and is to the likely outcome of any attempts to discuss race honestly, especially in the black community. Let’s be blunt: The white community isn’t going to talk about race in any form or fashion because they don’t want to be labeled as racists. It’s like inviting them to walk through a minefield. The chances of their getting to the other side unscathed are practically nil.

Black people who wish to have an honest dialogue about race in America aren’t treated any better. Ask Bill Cosby what happens when he speaks frankly about race and class to his fellow black Americans. Talk to Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell, Joseph C. Phillips, Star Parker, Ken Blackwell, Roy and Niger Innis, LaShawn Barber, Justice Clarence Thomas or any other black person who has dared to be candid about his or her views on race in America.

Not only will the high priests and scribes of the black orthodoxy lay waste to our reputations and integrity, they will sanction sympathetic whites to do the same. Oh, and no epithet is off limits, even if it is racially charged. The white enablers of the black orthodoxy are almost giddy with glee as they practice their best racist statements against those black men and women who dare to offer an opinion on race that deviates from the politically correct rendition of the state of blacks in America today.

I know this firsthand because I am a “sellout”–a Sambo, a Stepin Fetchit, a house Negro, an Uncle Tom. I know it because I refuse to become one with the hive and I am protective of the individuality and independence bestowed upon me by the Creator.

Incidentally, those who use the phrase “Uncle Tom” as a slur have no concept whatsoever of the character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Tom was a noble Christian man who endured the hardships of enslavement with amazing grace. He refused an order from Simon Legree, his cruel white master, to whip a fellow slave and was savagely beaten by Legree as a result. He also heroically resisted Legree’s attempts to break him of his faith in Christ.

Tom comforted the other slaves, encouraged two of them to escape and refused to divulge their whereabouts to Legree. Because of this, he was beaten to death by two black slaves, Sambo and Quimbo, who acted as Legree’s overseers. Tom forgave his assailants even as he was dying and they were so humbled by his mercy that they became Christians too. So Stowe’s main character is a man of great dignity and Christian faith.

Tom represented Stowe’s deliberate attempt to dispel the popular minstrel show stereotypes of black men as ignorant, lazy and frolicsome buffoons. In fact, it was the minstrel shows that subsequently took the Uncle Tom character and twisted him into a happy-go-lucky, boot-licking apologist for his white masters.

It seems that neither the minstrels nor the audiences of Stowe’s day were ready to accept the portrayal of a black man as better than a white man, no matter how evil the villain was. So in contempt for Tom’s goodness, many of the minstrel shows disposed of Simon Legree altogether.

Nonetheless, I smile when I’m called an Uncle Tom because, in the character’s original and intended incarnation, he is a Christ-like figure. My willingness to embrace what my adversaries think is an insult confounds them, which brings me even more pleasure.

The reason we are “a nation of cowards” when it comes to discussing race is because we don’t permit honesty to enter into the dialogue. There is a prescribed narrative that is deemed acceptable and no deviations from that narrative are permitted without negative consequences.

Yet I am no coward. Anyone who reads my articles on the internet–or anyone who’s read one of my letters to the editor of my local newspaper–can vouch for my fearlessness in discussing and debating issues of race or any topic related to politics, society and faith.

There’s an old saying that goes “Never discuss religion or politics in polite company.” Well, I broke that rule a long time ago and we may as well add race to the list because the response of “polite company” to that topic is likely to be equally charged as it would be to the first two.

So let’s talk about race in America, but from the perspective of a proud Uncle Tom and sellout. You may not like or accept what I have to say, but I am certain of my right to say it because it’s not a privilege to be granted or revoked by the black orthodoxy, their white enablers or anyone else. I was conceived in the image of God, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” I am a free man in the Creator’s universe with a view of the world that is uniquely mine and mine to express as I think best.

Jesus Christ says, “[Y]ou will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” I didn’t fully grasp what that meant until after more than 50 years of living. The knowledge of the truth instills in a person clarity, confidence and serenity, allowing one to stand firm against the lies and attacks of the world without fear.

Courage is true freedom and I came to that place because of Jesus Christ. Only in Him, the Eternal Word and Truth Incarnate, am I free to be a contrarian black man.

Mark my word, you will raise tax rates and you’ll feel good because you went out there and you got those rich people…You campaigned against rich people and you got enough envy whipped up in the country, and you’re going to stick it to those rich people. But guess what? You may not get any more revenue. You may not get any more economic growth. But you can say, “I stuck it to the rich people.” ~ Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

I don’t like emotional appeals. I think emotion deceives and distorts, and I believe the Bible on the folly of letting emotion rule one’s actions: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

In the wake of the recent agreement to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” – a hyperbolic and media-friendly term with little practical value – I am struck by the fact that one of the major components of the agreement, raising the income tax rates on individuals making $400,000 or more a year and couples making $450,000 or more a year, has, when subjected to impassioned scrutiny, more emotional than practical impact.

Anyone who looks at the “tax the rich” scenario with the cold eye of evidentiary analysis would correctly conclude that it will have no impact on the national debt, our unfunded liabilities, or even the annual deficit for one year.

The Congressional Budget Office projects a $620 billion increase in revenue over 10 years as a result of the increased tax rates. That averages out to $62 billion a year, and since the federal government spends $10,460,188,800 a day, this new “revenue” will be exhausted in less than six days, if not sooner given the administration’s desire for increased expenditures, or “investments,” their preferred term. I am certain the administration is aware of this fact.

Incidentally, the use of the word “investments” to describe increased government spending is yet another attempt by the elites to elicit a specific emotional response from the people. After all, who would oppose “investments” since their intent is to bring a positive return to the “shareholders,” namely the American taxpayer?

If this maneuver isn’t going to contribute to debt reduction, then what was its purpose?

If it was because the government wants to spend more, then why not say that? I think you know the answer to that; such an admission would not have been politically prudent in an election year.

Even if they were bold enough to admit that their intent is to spend more, the limited revenue generated by this tax rate increase isn’t nearly enough to cover the $10 trillion in new debt the Congressional Budget Office has projected as an outcome of the administration’s own ten-year budget submission. Even if they had gotten the tax rate increase they desired on individuals making $200,000 or more, or families making $250,000 or more, that would add only an additional $180 billion in revenue over the same ten year period. Once again, I am certain the administration is aware of this.

The point I’m trying to make by walking through this analysis is that the administration and its advocates are not serious about deficit reduction. I also don’t think it matters to them that their “tax the rich” scheme is unlikely to make up for the massive spending increases they seek. This tax rate increase was a political victory for them in that they bagged the trophy they promised to their constituents – they “stuck it to the rich people.”

It’s usually at this point that my liberal friends, clearly stung by the implication that their central tax policy is motivated by nothing more than covetousness and class envy, accuse me and my conservative allies of ignoring the theft and fraud perpetrated on the American people by the financial services industry in the economic meltdown of 2008.

We’ll set aside for the moment the simplistic and inaccurate notion that our economic collapse was due solely to criminal actions, rather than deliberate federal policies, and business decisions carried out with the blessing and encouragement of politicians from both parties. We’ll also not delve into a discussion of how much our own greed played into us making bad personal financial decisions which left us vulnerable when the housing bubble burst.

To the notion that the increased tax rates for upper income taxpayers are effectively a fair exchange after their “theft” of Americans’ wealth, I ask my liberal friends, “Must all upper income Americans pay the price for the alleged malfeasance of the few? Is that your definition of ‘fairness’?”

Here is what I believe. The distribution of others’ income is a core principle of the American left, and taking more from those who have more is essential to the successful execution of their distributive policies.

Note that I didn’t use the term “redistribution” or its derivatives because that is also a term fraught with emotional baggage. As I’ve stated in the past, redistribution presumes that income is arbitrarily disseminated in the first place rather than earned under mutually agreed upon contractual arrangements, and that some benevolent entity must intervene to reallocate income more equitably.

I categorically reject the inference that most people who have done well financially didn’t make their income legally and ethically, as well as the idea that the state has the moral or legal authority to confiscate their earnings solely for the purpose of “fairness,” which is another emotionally-laden word with little effective policy significance. “Fairness” isn’t objective, nor is there a single standard or power that establishes a universally accepted definition of “fairness.”

I can say with absolute confidence that life has never been fair, nor will it ever be. In fact, we have all had experiences where we were the beneficiaries of someone showing us favor over another, and I doubt we would surrender those experiences in the name of “fairness.” Jesus tells us that even God’s creation isn’t “fair,” since “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

Pursuing “fairness’ in economic policy is futile and frustrates the “winners” and the “losers,” the former because there will always be someone who has more, and they will always be discontented as a result, and the latter because they will accrue no benefit from their labors and therefore will lose the incentive to excel, which negatively impacts the proposed beneficiaries of this “fairness” doctrine – and around and around it goes. It’s human nature that has played itself out multiple times throughout history, and the pride of those who choose to ignore nature and history because they think they can do it better astounds me.

It annoys me when the president describes his tax rate hikes as “asking the wealthy to pay a little more.” The state doesn’t “ask” anyone to do anything; the only tool at the state’s disposal to accomplish its objectives is coercion.

Sadly, it’s not as if we weren’t warned about how our love of equality could lead to increased coercion by the state in order to achieve it. Alexis de Tocqueville noted in 1835 in his book, Democracy in America, that Americans’ passion for equality and fairness could have unintended consequences:

But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

To those who think the current trophy mounted on the state’s wall as a result of the “fiscal cliff” agreement is enough, I challenge you to consider Tocqueville’s warning. The state’s pursuit of economic “fairness” will result in an expanding definition of “haves” from whom more will be “asked” to effect “redistributive justice,” as then-Illinois state senator Barack Obama phrased it in 2001. The hunt is just beginning.

The first was an op-ed piece in the New York Times by liberal columnist Nicholas Kristoff, who I will give credit for occasionally acknowledging truths that go against the conventional wisdom of the circles in which he resides.

The last time he wrote something that validated conservatives and, I’m sure, exorcised liberals who are intellectually and emotionally incapable of positively crediting their ideological opposites, it was his confession that conservatives are indeed more generous with their time, talent and treasure when it comes to charitable giving than his fellow liberals.

In his more recent article, he confessed that many government programs designed to fight poverty have actually perpetuated it, and this revelation greatly disheartened him:

This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.

Some young people here don’t join the military (a traditional escape route for poor, rural Americans) because it’s easier to rely on food stamps and disability payments.

Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.

Kristoff concludes:

I’m no expert on domestic poverty. But for me, a tentative lesson from the field is that while we need safety nets, the focus should be instead on creating opportunity — and, still more difficult, on creating an environment that leads people to seize opportunities.

He goes on to tout – wait for it – a non-profit, non-government program, Save the Children, as “a model of what does work” to combat poverty in its nascent stages, namely as it affects children.

Good for him. His ability to examine and give credence to thoughts and ideas outside of his worldview is the kind of attitude we need, because it will eventually lead to conversation rather than confrontation over the crushing problems of our times.

The other article that gave me pause was written by Peter Cove, a man who served on the front lines in the War on Poverty at its commencement and, like a soldier discovering the true horror of war, realized that programs ostensibly designed to move people out of poverty were in fact keeping them there.

He learned, to his chagrin, that an entire class of activists and interest groups actually benefitted from expanding, rather than reducing, the numbers of people receiving public assistance:

But the government’s unprecedented expenditures failed to bring about the decline in poverty that Johnson had promised. Instead, they made things worse. Neither city hall nor I comprehended that the “community action” organizations on which we lavished taxpayer dollars would entrench dependency by urging people to get on the welfare rolls. War on Poverty funds paid for social workers, community activists, and lawyers to organize the poor, but these organizers, far from lifting poor people out of dependency, helped them sign up for more—and more expensive—welfare programs. For instance, the National Welfare Rights Organization urged single black mothers to protest the welfare system’s eligibility restrictions, and the organization’s goal was to flood the system with new clients.

Cove determined that work, not public assistance, was the answer to eliminating poverty:

Work maximizes a person’s capacity to achieve economic self-reliance. Work socializes people and instills a sense of personal responsibility in them. Work connects behavior and consequences. And it permits people, especially men, to obtain the admiration and respect of their spouses and children by supporting them.

Cove’s experiences with pilot welfare-to-work programs, which emphasized immediate job placement over training and education programs favored by government “anti-poverty” initiatives, led him to establish a for-profit firm, America Works, that takes supposedly unemployable people and puts them to work, breaking the generational cycle of dependency.

Cove “raised $1 million in start-up money, betting that a for-profit company could do the job better than government welfare agencies could and simultaneously bring accountability to a field that desperately needed it.” The company doesn’t make a dime until a candidate is successfully placed in a job and is employed for at least four months.

Despite skepticism about their for-profit model and resistance from the public sector welfare bureaucracy, the company has been very successful in ending poverty for thousands of people previously thought to be “unemployable”:

In the past 27 years, America Works has placed more than 250,000 poor people, with an average of five to six years on the rolls, in private-sector jobs, with an average starting wage of $10 per hour plus benefits. In our New York program, to take one example, more than half of these new workers were still on the job after 180 days. The employers that we have worked with include prestigious companies, such as Time Warner, Cablevision, Aramark, J. C. Penney, and American Building Maintenance Industries. Most of these employers keep coming back, asking for more of our referrals.

Single parents, drug and alcohol abusers, the mentally handicapped, the homeless, military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder, and others with disabilities have succeeded admirably in a wide variety of jobs and have lifted themselves out of a lifetime of poverty.

Peter Cove’s successes influenced the federal welfare reforms of the late 1990s, and despite dire predictions that “children will be sleeping on the gratings,” 7.5 million people dropped off the welfare rolls and into the workplace within a decade.

Despite the success of the welfare-to-work model, even today the federal government seeks to neuter it by replacing the mandatory work requirements with more nebulous and demonstrably less effective training and education programs, which have failed to incentivize the chronic poor and inoculate them with the discipline and work ethic they need to break away from poverty.

One of my goals in 2013 is to spark a new conversation about poverty and true "social justice," making it clear that miring human beings in a permanent state of dependence on public aid, whatever the intentions of the aid providers and their advocates, is not compassionate, but is in fact cruel.

Entitlement has not just condemned the poor to lives of permanent despair, but has also compelled far too many of us to accept mere existence when, as children of God and Americans, we once aspired to so much more.

Even the 21th century version of the American Dream is mediocre, describing a life where everyone works for someone else, and they have just enough to have a house, a car, and take a vacation every now and again:

"If you’re willing to put in the work, the idea is that you should be able to raise a family and own a home; not go bankrupt because you got sick, because you’ve got some health insurance that helps you deal with those difficult times; that you can send your kids to college; that you can put some money away for retirement…

"That’s all most people want…Folks don’t have unrealistic ambitions. They do believe that if they work hard they should be able to achieve that small measure of an American Dream.” ~ President Obama

Perhaps I am too idealistic, but I don’t think any of us should limit ourselves to such small dreams if our minds and hearts steer us to something bigger. The middle class ought to be a launching pad, not a destination.

Moreover, our culture’s embrace of mere existence as the pinnacle of our hopes and dreams has an ugly side to it, and that is our demonization of success. While there are some whose success has indeed come at the expense of others, this by no means characterizes the vast majority of people in America who excel, and we do our national culture a disservice when we denigrate the achievers who see more to themselves, and seek and seize opportunity wherever they can find it.

They are why we became the greatest nation in world history, and if we truly wish to reestablish that greatness, not out of hubris but because it represents all of us being everything we can possibly be, we need them to be encouraged and lifted up, not torn down.

Arthur Brooks makes the argument that entrepreneurism is practically encoded in Americans’ DNA, since everyone who willingly immigrated to America, uprooting themselves from their home countries to come to a strange land, was primed to take risks and seize opportunities:

Think about it. Immigrants tend to be entrepreneurial, willing to give up security and familiarity for the possibility of prosperity and success. . . . Only a small minority of people from any particular community tend to migrate away from their homeland. . . . America’s vast success might be explained in part by our genetic predisposition to embrace risks with potentially explosive rewards.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming big, taking risks and breathing the rarefied air of great possibilities. That is who we are as Americans or, at least, who we once were.

Perhaps our success as a nation made us too comfortable, and perhaps the generations who worked so hard to build this nation did too much for us, not wanting us to suffer as they did, yet unintentionally robbing us of the good character that hard work, delayed gratification, and self-sacrifice would have instilled within us.

I believe we need to reclaim our entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic, and I don’t mean that just in an economic sense, but as a way of life. As Arthur Brooks argues, earned success brings with it rewards that far exceed monetary wealth, and the great Frederick Douglass, a self-made man if ever there was one, said it best:

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success.

We’ve all endured much in the past few years, and I am no exception. Despite unemployment, debt and financial struggle, however, I still have big dreams for myself and my family, and I won’t let people or circumstances steal those dreams from me.

The new year begins tomorrow. Will you reject the mediocrity of the revisionist American Dream and help to restore, for  your own sake and the sake of your family, community and nation, the American Dream as it once was? That’s a resolution that can revive a nation.

The prevailing attitude in the black community in the wake of President Obama’s reelection could be stated as follows: “We delivered for you, so now it’s time for you to deliver for us.” This attitude, in my opinion, is predicated on an unrealistic assumption of how politics works in the real world.

Frankly put, if politicians don’t have to work for your affections before the vote, they certainly aren’t obligated to reward you afterwards.

One of the more destructive mindsets in the black community when it comes to political institutions is that they are either our “friends” or our “enemies.” A famous saying about the proper conduct of foreign policy is paraphrased as follows: “Nations don’t have friends; they have interests.” The same thing can be said for political parties.

The Democrats who enslaved and oppressed black people for more than a century didn’t suddenly fall in love with black people, nor did the Republicans whose very reason for existence was the abolition of slavery and the granting of full citizenship to black Americans, suddenly start hating black people 50 years ago. The fact is that while we behave as if a political party loves or hates us, the parties make decisions on where to devote their time, attention and resources based on what helps them win elections.

We are so beholden, however, to the notion that one party “likes” us and the other one “hates” us that we sell our souls to one and pillory the other, rendering ourselves politically irrelevant.

That is why the Democrats, including the first black president, will bend over backwards to make significant policy concessions to every interest group under the sun except black people, because we tell him “We’ve got your back,” and he knows he just has to throw out a few radio ads reminding us of who loves us to get 96 percent of our vote.

While we swoon over words and expressed feelings, the horrific statistics, reflecting the toll on the black community of broken families, poverty, lack of educational opportunity, crime and untimely death, do not change or get worse.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are called heartless, even racist, for the mere suggestion that the same principles which allowed immigrants from all over the world to come here and succeed can work for us, too, and that current policies are an anchor on our political and economic independence. We reject them decisively at the polls, and so they conclude that courting us is a waste of time.

That’s the way to master the art of politics; cause one party to take you for granted, and the other to ignore you. Black historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who argued forcefully for blacks to be politically independent, would declare us fools for such an emotionally driven and short-sighted approach to politics.

Even those who claim their allegiance to one party is based on policy are selling their people short. They make statements like “Big government is us by another name,” or blame high black unemployment on the shrinking public sector, or the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP, responds tepidly to the rise of Congressman Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate, making him the only black U.S. senator in the nation, because he stands for a “small government” agenda that’s “not within the African-American community’s best interest.”

If our viability in America as a people depends on the expansion of government, then we are in worse shape than we realize.

The government is broke, and broken.

If you disbelieve that, look at the U.S. debt clock and focus on just two figures, the U.S. national debt near the top, and the U.S. unfunded liabilities near the bottom. The first figure is America’s “credit card” debt, and the second is the upcoming bill for services to be rendered. Those numbers alone are staggering, and we’ve not even factored in state and local public sector debt, which many of us may feel more immediately as essential public services are cut back or eliminated. Even police protection is no longer assured, and once great cities have become war zones as governments have essentially thrown up their hands in defeat.

As even President Obama will admit, “Well, we are out of money now.”

As for the government being broken, remember how the government’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina was supposedly due to racism? How does one explain their poor response to Hurricane Sandy? Has it occurred to anyone that the ponderous dinosaur from Rome on the Potomac can’t handle it?

Has anyone considered the possibility that the unacceptably high poverty rate in the black community might have something to do with government’s inability to fix the problem, or that the problem may not be one that can be solved by government, or that government may have perpetuated the problem with their policies?

Is it wise to pursue primarily one remedy for what ails us, effectively putting all our eggs in one increasingly fragile basket?

We black conservatives take a lot of heat from liberals who claim we are too quick to discount the impact of America’s tortured racial past on the black community. I can only speak for myself, but I don’t dismiss what has happened to black Americans since we first reached the shores of this great nation in the 16th century. From the era of slavery (1526-1865) to the institutionalized discrimination of Jim Crow laws and the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and thousands of lynchings (1876-1965), American society declared emphatically, and often in violent fashion, that black people were inferior to other human beings and undeserving of the inalienable rights afforded to others. Even the schools where blacks went to “better” themselves perpetuated the lie that blacks were not as capable as other people, as Dr. Woodson highlighted in his signature work, The Mis-education of the Negro.

I’ve written often about how this constant, centuries-long drumbeat of inferiority and second-class citizenship affected native-born blacks, while their brethren from the Caribbean and Africa, who willingly immigrated to America and lacked such baggage, have been measurably more successful in academics and the professions, even as far back as the early 20th century.

I would add to the history, however, the era of generational dependency (1965-present), in which that same sense of black inferiority has made us susceptible to the notion that our only route to success is through the benevolence of government. This is the same government which, throughout history, either enslaved us, or suppressed or ignored our rights under the law for generations, and which only in the late 20th century took steps to live up to its legal and moral responsibility to protect our rights under the law.

Conservatives are known for their mistrust of government. I submit, however, that after a history of abuse or neglect, and the velveteen racism of dependency politics, which offer a meager existence at best and consign us to lesser homes, lesser schools and lessened expectations, black Americans shouldn’t trust government to have our best interests at heart, either.

History can be a compass or an anchor, depending on whether we let it lead us forward or hold us in place. I would contend that we have done the latter to our ongoing detriment.

Our fatal attraction to government, and politicians that advocate its continued expansion and intrusion into our lives, is the path of least resistance, and the temptation to follow it is strong. Yet, the same people who for generations told us we were inferior and could do nothing without them now tell us only they can help us – which is another way of saying we are inferior and can do nothing without them.

Why do we willingly accept this? Are we so desirous of safety and security that we will surrender our dignity and freedom? As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I continue to be heartened by the voices of my fellow black conservatives, who have become more outspoken and bold in recent years. Our willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom of what we can or cannot do, and our steadfastness in the face of withering  and strident insults from white liberals and the black orthodoxy, tells me that we are breaking the cycle of accepting our fate as dictated by others, and seizing for ourselves the reins of our own lives.

That is my hope and prayer for 2013, because I predict the limits of government will become painfully apparent in the months and years to come, and we will need a spirit of victory if we are to survive, and eventually thrive:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

I hope you have a blessed and transforming 2013!

One of the resources I consulted in preparation for the lecture was black historian Carter G. Woodson’s Miseducation of the Negro, first published in 1933. I first read it a few years ago after coming across some quotes from it which I found surprising, because they validated some positions I’ve held for most of my life regarding the state of black America.

The reason I was surprised is because, for decades, this book has been a staple of African-American studies programs, which have come under criticism for their narrow focus on the victimization of black people and America’s irredeemable racism, their emphasis on leftist philosophies and remedies, and their lack of comprehensive scholarship on the entire black experience in America. Upon reading the book for myself, I came away feeling the way author Debra Dickerson did after reading it:

I had been led to think that The Miseducation of the Negro was about how white people had miseducated us. But that’s not what it’s about. Those books are really about communal critique. DuBois and Carter G. Woodson—these guys faced lynchings just for being who they were at the time, but here they were talking not about white people, but about what the standards of our community should be! It just—oh, man—rocked me on my heels. And it made me really angry. But it was also inspiring: in the thirties things were just as bleak as they could possibly be for us, and yet Carter G. Woodson was sort of calm and circumspect about it all, saying: Take the long view, take the historical view.

In fact, the book didn’t shy away from the topic of how blacks were being “miseducated” to think of themselves as inferior, and collectively bereft of significant contributions to the advancement of American society. This “miseducation” was the impetus for the creation by Dr. Woodson of what has become Black History Month, which he hoped would emphasize the accomplishments of black Americans and serve as a source of pride and encouragement.

He often compared the mindset of the indigenous black population in America to that of black immigrants from the Caribbean, who had not been subjected to the drumbeat of inferiority and, as a result, not only considered themselves the equal of any man, but became accomplished in academia and the professions at a level disproportionate to their presence in the population.

For example, Dr. John C. Walter notes that in 1930, black immigrants from the West Indies represented 40% of all doctors of color in America, even though they represented only 1.2%-1.5% of the black population. A similar phenomenon can be seen in immigrants from Africa who, according to a study reported in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education in the winter of 1999-2000, were more likely to have a college degree or a graduate degree than any other immigrant group, including Asians, who are generally perceived as the most highly intellectual of immigrants to our nation.

In fact, African immigrants outperformed native-born whites and blacks in both categories, with a significant achievement gap between African immigrants and native-born blacks. The study reported that “…they were more than three times as likely to have a college degree than native-born African Americans,” and the percentage of indigenous blacks with graduate degrees was “less than one fifth the rate of African immigrants to this country.”

There was more to Dr. Woodson’s work, however, than simply a critique of an educational system that kept blacks in a state of inferiority. He spoke directly and candidly to the educated blacks of his day, challenging them to take responsibility for black ascendancy. He believed the solutions should come from within the black community, and he declared that “those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”

Dr. Woodson also had a vision for how blacks should engage in the political process, and “Chapter XVII: Higher Strivings in the Service of the Country,” held a particular fascination for me as a student of politics and policy. After reading it, I was led to ask myself, “What happened to ‘the New Negro in politics,’ as Dr. Woodson described him?” Woodson begins his chapter with these words:

Another factor the Negro needs is a new figure in politics, one who will not concern himself so much with what others can do for him as with what he can do for himself. He will know sufficient about the system of government not to carry his trouble to the federal functionaries and thus confess himself a failure in the community in which he lives.

He establishes a couple of key themes from the beginning – self-sufficiency, competence, and local action. Regarding the latter, he writes, “The New Negro in politics will not be so unwise as to join the ignorant delegations from conferences and convention which stage annual pilgrimages to the White House to complain to the President because they have socially and economically failed to measure up to demands of self-preservation.”

He looked upon these blacks as helpless and, therefore, scorned by those from whom they sought help. I’m reminded of the treks black leaders of today make to the White House with their “black agenda,” and how they are politely received, yet little is done for them. Woodson believed that “the New Negro in politics” would establish his or her worth, and have something of value to offer, before asking for help from others: “If he does something for himself, others will do more for him.”

He also imagined “the New Negro in politics” would be independent and “not a tool for the politicians,” declaring:

This higher role can be played not by parking all of the votes of a race on one side of the fence…but by independent action. The Negro should not censure the Republican Party for forgetting him and he should not blame the Democratic Party for opposing him.

Any people who will vote the same way for three generations without thereby obtaining results ought to be ignored and disfranchised. As a minority element the Negro should not knock at the door of any particular political party. He should appeal to the Negroes themselves and from them should come harmony and concerted action for a new advance to that larger freedom of men. The Negro should use his vote rather than give it away to reward the dead for some favors done in the distant past.

Adjusting his statement to fit modern times, Dr. Woodson would probably write, “The black man should not censure the Democratic Party for taking him for granted, and he should not blame the Republican Party for ignoring him.” I imagine Dr. Woodson would be dismayed by the monolithic and ironclad 85-96% black voting bloc consistently granted to the Democratic Party since 1964, and the fact the Democrats expect it and the Republicans don’t contest it proves the point he made back in 1933.

Woodson also came out against the public sector positions to which professional blacks of his day aspired, saying, “The few state and national offices formerly set aside for Negroes have paled into insignificance when compared with the many highly lucrative positions now occupied by Negroes as a result of their development in other spheres.” He believed that politics would be ineffective in solving “any serious problem” in the black community unless blacks had the wealth and power that only came from being “prominent in education, business or professional life.” He said, “A class of people slightly lifted above poverty…can never have much influence in political circles.” By building personal wealth and power, and striving to “give the world something rather than extract something from it,” the black professional would find that “he will not have to knock at the doors of political parties but will have them thrown open to him.”

Blacks today, however, are disproportionately represented and dependent upon public sector jobs. The University of California – Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education reports that blacks are 30 percent more likely than nonblacks to work in the public sector, and roughly 21 percent of black workers are public employees, compared with 16.3 percent of nonblacks. As a result, reductions in the public sector workforce have had a disparate impact on the unemployment rate in the black community. The disproportionate number of blacks on public assistance is well documented and need not be repeated here.

Therefore, it’s no wonder that black organizations like the NAACP, and self-anointed black leaders like the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, believe the “black agenda” and expanding government are inexorably linked, and to oppose the latter is to oppose the former. It places us directly at odds with the principles of limited government and self-rule upon with the nation was founded, and it marginalizes us politically.

Another cause of black marginalization within the American political process, according to Woodson, was black politicians’ myopic focus on “black” issues, and he warned “the new Negro in politics” against this:

When such Negroes go into office you will not find them specializing in things which peculiarly concern the Negroes, offering merely antilynching bills and measures for pensioning the freedmen. The New Negro in politics will see his opportunity not in thus restricting himself but in visioning the whole social and economic order with his race as a part of it. In thus working for the benefit of all as prompted by his liberal mindedness the New Negro will do much more to bring the elements together for common good than he will be able to do in prating only of the ills of his particular corner and extending his hand for a douceur.

Were he alive today, I believe he would, upon examination, note that the issues which concern black politicians primarily tend to be “black” issues, and the fact they sometimes are part of a larger agenda is purely coincidental. This, and the theory that black elected officials, with few exceptions and one notable one, tend to represent majority black constituencies as an unintended consequence of the mandates within the Voting Rights Act of 1965, puts them in a “political ghetto” where they are isolated in their “particular corner,” to use Woodson’s words, and set apart from the political mainstream because of the people and issues they represent.

I hasten to add here that this “ghettoization” isn’t an outcome that warrants the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. It is, however, an illustration of the byzantine process of crafting legislation in Washington, where multiple agendas result in bills which are engineered to do too many things, not all of them desirable. As columnist Matt Lewis puts it, such legislation “is a prime example of how governmental intrusion comes with unintended consequences — often at the expense of the very people it ostensibly tries to help.” Because of familiarity and proximity, local governments and self-rule stand a better chance of fixing problems without the unintended consequences.

Perhaps the most eye-opening words in the chapter Woodson wrote on “the New Negro in politics,” however, were the ones in which he rejected communism and socialism outright as a solution for black Americans. He wrote that every system in which “no one is to enjoy the fruits of his exceptional labor any more than the individual who is not prepared to render such extraordinary service” has “broken down,” and “If the excited whites who are bringing to the Negroes such strange doctrines are insane enough to believe them, the Negroes themselves should learn to think before it is too late.”

He warned against political causes which purportedly had the best interests of black Americans at heart, but which “merely mean to use the race as a means to an end” and would abandon them as soon as their goals were met. He accused “the Republican machine” of his day of abandonment once they locked in the black vote, but the formula is being repeated today with the Democrats, who are practiced at stirring up racial fears and resentment toward their opponents but, after the election is over, don’t do much in the way of policy to help blacks break the cycle of generational dependency and become equal heirs to the American Dream.

Woodson believed the assertion that blacks couldn’t succeed in the free market served to “discredit the Negro as a capable competitor in the economic battle of life.” He said the only reason blacks hadn’t succeeded at that point is that they didn’t have the opportunity to try, and he was confident in what they could do when given that opportunity. In that respect, he echoed the faith in black Americans held by great men like Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, whose individual achievements despite slavery, institutionalized discrimination and a culture steeped in racism, exposed the lie of black inferiority and demonstrated how hard work and excellence could overcome any obstacle.

In my opinion, black leaders of yesteryear had more faith in black Americans than do the self-anointed black leaders of today. Their words may speak of such faith, but their deeds and endless demands highlight, in Woodson’s words, “the tendency of the Negro to look to some force from without to do for him what he must learn to do for himself.”

We have tremendous potential for achievement if we adopt self-rule and pursue our own salvation, and I’ve spoken before about our potential and how we can use it. If “the New Negro in politics” is ever to become a reality, we need to free ourselves from the “miseducation” of our current black leadership and look to those in the past who truly believed in us, even in our darkest hour.

RGIII was raised by a mother and father who both served in the armed forces, and who instilled in him from the very beginning the values of self-discipline, hard work and striving for excellence in everything you do.

The success of his parents’ teaching is apparent not only on the football field, but in the public spotlight and in the classroom. He appears completely comfortable with expressing himself to the media, and speaks smoothly and confidently on any topic addressed to him.

His academic achievements, although less well known, speak for themselves.

He graduated from Baylor University in three years with a degree in political science, earning a 3.67 grade point average along the way. He immediately began work on his master’s degree in communications, and he simply has to complete a thesis or a graduate project in order to finish. In every respect, he is an accomplished young man and a role model, and I’m confident the only time he’ll appear before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is to receive accolades for his conduct.

As an aside, when addressing this topic in social media, a football fan said they were tired of hearing about RGIII and wanted to promote Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Russell Wilson instead. I jokingly told them:

I wouldn’t call attention to Russell Wilson…he’s married to a white woman, got his college degree in three years, is a devout Christian, and he’s articulate, well-dressed and well-mannered. The “authentically black” police might come looking for him!

I can certainly relate to RGIII, not as an athlete, since I have little natural athletic ability, and all I had going for me in football was a desire to play, a willingness to work hard, and a fearlessness about hurling my body into the path of other bodies.

In terms of being raised by good parents with high values and even higher expectations, however, we share a similar background. My father is also a veteran, having served a career in the U.S. Air Force, and we traveled the world, and saw people and places and had experiences unknown to most Americans. Our parents took advantage of these opportunities to remind us how blessed we were, and how we had a responsibility to show through our lives our gratitude for those blessings.

One of the most valuable of the many lessons I learned from my parents, married for 53 years as of this past May and still going strong, is to be indifferent to the opinions of ignorant people. They taught me the difference between right and wrong, to accept correction when I did wrong, and to hold fast, regardless of what others might say or do, when I was doing right. Too many black children fail to realize their full potential because they want to fit in with the crowd, and they succumb to peer pressure as a result. I was fortunate that my parents taught me to be true to myself, and to dismiss those who would exhibit a “crab bucket” mentality and try to drag me down to their level. There is great freedom in not caring what people who don’t know you – and some who do – might think of you.

Those lessons stood me in good stead during my seventh grade year in Lake Charles, Louisiana, as I recount in my book, SELLOUT: Musings from Uncle Tom’s Porch:

When my father was sent overseas to Thailand in 1971 for a one-year unaccompanied tour, the family returned to Lake Charles and there I endured the worst school year of my life. I was going into 7th grade at Lincoln Junior High School which, despite integration, was predominantly black. I soon found myself to be a fish out of water. The children there ridiculed my speech, accusing me of “talkin’ propah” or “talkin’ like a white boy.” They jeered my dress, my grades, and my respect for the teachers and administrators—almost everything about me.

My only friends were two white boys who I’m convinced were left back a couple of grades. They took a liking to me and figured I needed their help if I was going to make it through the school year without being beaten up. When my father returned from Thailand and we got our next duty assignment to Spain, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I’ve read a lot of studies and commentary suggesting that claims of black children dismissing academic achievement and proper speech among their peers — or accusing them of “acting white” — is a myth. You can throw all the numbers at me that you want, but you’ll never convince me. I lived it for a year and it left an indelible impression on my young psyche.

I was fortunate to have a mother and father who, despite not having their high school diplomas at the time, encouraged my love of learning and reading, bought me books and took me to the library, and celebrated when I brought home a good report card. They were proud of me for speaking and writing well, and they never, ever told me I wasn’t “black enough.” If anything, they were proud of my achievements, and if they had written a military award citation to reflect their pride, it would probably read, “the singularly distinctive accomplishments of our son are in keeping with the finest traditions of excellence in the black community, and reflect great credit upon himself, our family and our community.”

Excellence was once a goal to be reached, a status to which we aspired. “Excellence is the best deterrent to racism,” thundered Jesse Jackson from the pulpits and the podium. Speaking and writing well were badges of honor, in keeping with the great history of black orators and writers in America. Our parents and teacher worked hard to instruct us on how to present ourselves to the world. Writer and attorney Leigh Arthalia Cravin recalls the emphasis her teachers and mentors in the segregated schools of her Texas hometown placed on the mastery of the English language, and how to be composed in public:

I grew up during the period of total racial segregation in America and was not exposed to a white classroom until I was [a] junior at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Before 1967 every teacher and principal I had was black, and every classmate was black. But what I do remember is that my teachers inspired us to eloquent speech and oration. They did so by assigning poetry to memorize and recite. I still remember boys in my seventh grade class who learned and recited James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation.” I can still remember how these boys walked out onto a school stage, neatly dressed, completely composed, momentarily stood silently, made contact with the audience, and then began speaking: “And God stepped out on space and said, “I’m lonely I’ll make me a world.” I can still remember boys, even at the poor black school in Shamrock, Texas, who recited from memory Walt Whitman’s “Oh Captain, My Captain, our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won.”

Throughout my elementary, junior high, and high school years I was encouraged to remember and recite poetry. I still remember my high school English teacher having us recite Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “ Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as life the town-crier spoke my lines. “Back then” we recited poetry and prose in school. At church we memorized and recited whole chapters of the Bible. We were told to “spit out those Ts” and not to say “dem” and “dat.” Black teachers and other adult mentors taught us to stand tall, not wriggle our hands or shuffle our feet, not to roll our eyes toward the ceiling or sway from side to side, but to garner self composure and to speak well.

She goes on to remind us of great black orators of times past, including one of my heroes, Frederick Douglass, who overcame slavery and the lack of a formal education to become one of the truly great speakers, writers and statesmen, indeed, one of the greatest men in American history.

Because of our rich heritage of excellence in all endeavors, it puzzles and pains me to hear black people today equate eloquence of speech and academic and professional achievement as “acting white.” It’s a self-defeating attitude because it presumes blacks are required to be inarticulate and ignorant in order to be “authentic.” and it’s inaccurate because it’s safe to say that these traits are not typical of a large number of white people, either. If anything, the ability to speak, write, learn and reason well isn’t tied to race as much as it is to aptitude and attitude.

Many black people may find solace in a collective identity, but we should never take that to mean we should all be the same because, by the grace of God, we are not.

Aren’t we falling into a trap when we stereotype ourselves, especially when it comes to the negative behavior and character traits associated with that stereotype?

Remember when former president Bill Clinton was called “the first black president” by author Toni Morrison, presumably in jest? Was it because he was an accomplished speaker, writer and public figure? Was it because he was a Rhodes Scholar?

No, it was because “Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.” I’m sure his promiscuity was implicit in that label as well, since Ms. Morrison declared, “I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp.”

Is that what it means to be “authentically black?”

I have relatives who have been addicted to drugs and alcohol since youth, barely finished high school, can’t hold jobs, can’t stay out of the reach of the law, and can’t string two understandable sentences together. Yet, in the eyes of one of the family elders, they were “black through and through” while I was “a white cake with chocolate frosting.”

Is that what it means to be “authentically black?”

Who made the decision that “authentic blackness” precludes academic, professional and oratorical excellence, or diversity of political or social thought, or dating or marrying for love rather than ethnicity? How audacious was it for the Reverend Jesse Jackson to tell CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, when discussing the paucity of black anchors on that cable news channel, that “You don’t count”? Is her black mother irrelevant because Jesse Jackson says so?

Is that what it means to be “authentically black?”

And who bestowed upon these people the role of arbiters of blackness? As I wrote in my book:

I don’t know if other ethnic groups struggle like we do with diversity in our own ranks, but our uniqueness as individuals should be a cause for celebration, not condemnation. All our battles for liberty and acceptance as equal heirs to the American Dream are in vain if we aren’t free to be whoever God made us to be.

As far as I’m concerned, only the One who designed me has the authority to declare my authenticity. His Word says “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14), and He declares, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart (Jeremiah 1:5).”

He knows us personally and individually, so well that, “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Luke 12:7).”

He encourages us to be everything He made us to be, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).”

Think about that. God put together a mission statement, vision, objectives and task list with your name at the top of it, and he then designed and constructed you exactly as you needed to be for the work He laid out for you. You want to talk about authenticity? That’s what it means – to be true to how God made you, and to the purposes for which He made you.

I’m sure RGIII’s parents taught him to have a God’s-eye view of himself, because he is clear about whose path he follows. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Proverbs 9:10).” The word in Hebrew which has been translated to “fear” in fact means awe, reverence and honor, and RGIII has chosen to give God all glory, honor and praise, and to demonstrate his awe by being excellent in all things.

Is RGIII “black enough?” He’s as black as God made him, and that’s as authentic as it gets.

The Democrats went through a similar period of introspection after 12 years out of the White House, and again following the 1994 Republican Revolution that captured the U.S. House of Representatives after 40 years of Democratic Party control. They pilloried the “extremists” and said they needed to move to the center, thinking it was the key to their long-term political viability. The party labels may change, but the song remains the same.

I was discussing this cycle with a pastor friend of mine since many in the GOP have decided to turn on the social conservatives, the heart, soul, hands and feet of the party who are, for the most part, evangelical Christians.

“Maybe the voters would love us more if we abandoned the principles of our most loyal supporters adopted some of the positions of our opponents,” they opine. Well, that may not be how they would present their argument, but that is in fact what they are suggesting.

Strictly from a political perspective, this is ludicrous.

If voters are given a choice between committed Democrats and Republicans trying to be more like Democrats, guess who they’re going to pick?

The whole notion of an opposition party is to promote and defend an opposing worldview, and offer the electorate a choice. To those who think the GOP is going to see a surge of electoral support without the passion and principles of the social conservative movement, I say “Good luck with that.” Moderates generally don’t sacrifice their time, talents, and treasure the way social conservatives do – that’s why they’re called moderates – and, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, if you think the GOP is a defeated party with social conservatives in it, wait until you see what it looks like without them.

The Democrats, after all, once thought they should discard their “extremists” if they were going to win, yet they currently hold the White House and the U.S. Senate with a platform that is more left of center than at any time in their history.

It is precisely the devotion and commitment of evangelicals to the political process, however, that has my pastor friend apoplectic, and he threw down a proposal to me so radical that I can’t help but share it.

In some respects, his proposal reminded me of John Galt, a key figure in Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, who grew tired of being used and demeaned by the state and the “takers” of society, and decided to lead a movement where he and producers like himself would go on strike, “stopping the motor of the world” and showing them the futility of a society without the creators, innovators and producers.

Conscientious Christians on both sides of the political aisle have been used by the political process for decades now, and if they are honest with themselves, none of the goals they sought to achieve through these earthly institutions have come to pass in any meaningful way.

Whether you declare yourself to be on the left and look to politics to care for the poor, the sick and the hungry, or you land on the right and expect politics to protect the unborn, affirm the family, and promote life, liberty and the fruits of one’s labor, if you are honest with yourself, you will admit that you’ve gotten very little return on your investment of time, skill, money and passion.

So, my pastor friend suggested that it’s time for Christians to remove themselves from politics altogether – no voting, no running for office, no time, money or talent toward achieving political success. They will continue to obey the law, but they will completely disengage from politics.

In other words, it’s time for Christians to “go Galt” on the political process.

Have I got your attention?

The more I thought about his proposal, the more I thought it warranted a deep and serious discussion of its merits and its faults. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian and martyr to the Nazis, told his seminary students that every good sermon required, as his friend and mentor, Anglican bishop George Bell would say, “a shot of heresy.” Sometimes a dramatic dissent from conventional wisdom, a paradigm breaker, is what is needed to spur critical thinking and deeper reflection, and it might even sharpen one’s defense of the prevailing view, so it is in that spirit that I am examining my pastor friend’s proposal.

Of course, this proposal is not new, although it might be more draconian in its suggested implementation. Two of the better known books embracing this idea are Why Government Can’t Save You: An Alternative to Political Activism, by famed pastor, teacher and author Dr. John MacArthur, and Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can’t Save America, which was notable in that one of its co-authors, syndicated columnist and pundit Cal Thomas, was a faithful lieutenant in the social conservative movement as a vice president for the Moral Majority, the leading organization of the so-called “Religious Right” at its zenith in the 1980s.

While I recommend you read them both to gain a full appreciation of their point of view, they generally challenge the reader to “count the cost” of extensive Christian involvement in politics, and I will attempt to summarize their arguments, and that of my pastor friend:

1) Just another special interest group: Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has historically held the role of America’s moral conscience, transcending the worldly quest for power, and operating independently of the political and cultural currents of the day. The founders believed that only “a religious and moral people” could successfully govern themselves under a constitutional republic, and so they envisioned the church as the guardian of virtue. Some would argue that the church’s deep involvement in the political process has reduced it to just another special interest group seeking to have its demands met through the mechanisms of government, and therefore stripped it of its transcendent nature, and the power it gave the church to inform the conscience of the nation.

2) Millenials hate politicized faith: In the book ”Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity … and Why It Matters,” authors David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons cite extensive data from The Barna Group, a market research firm specializing in religious beliefs and behavior, which indicate young Americans believe Christians are “primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.” The authors do a credible job of addressing this perception and discussing the complexities and challenges it presents, pointing out that there is no easy or pat answer to the question of the means through which Christians should influence the culture. I would add that political involvement is not exclusive to Christians who self-identify as conservative, as organizations like Sojourners and its founder, Christian activist Jim Wallis, demonstrate, but the “Christian left” is somehow spared the ire of the culture, and while I have my opinions as to why that is the case, this isn’t the time or place to air them. Ultimately, the consequence of the perception that Christians are too wedded to right-wing politics is that young people feel disconnected from the church, and they miss the good news of Jesus Christ.

3) Poor return on investment – Whether it’s aid to the poor, protection of life from conception to natural death, the defense of marriage, or any one of a number of noble goals the church seeks to achieve, a case could be made that turning to government as the primary means through which to accomplish them hasn’t worked. The so-called “War on Poverty” launched nearly half a century ago hasn’t appreciably changed the lives of millions for whom poverty is a legacy passed from generation to generation, despite tens of trillions of taxpayer dollars spent and an unprecedented expansion of government into a sphere of influence for which it is ill-designed. Even liberal observers have been forced to admit that many government poverty programs have perpetuated dependency rather than eliminated it, and led to the unintended consequence of crushing the human spirit under the weight of hopelessness and despair. The battle for the sanctity of human life at all stages of development has netted some victories, but abortion on demand is still the law of the land, and assisted suicide is legal in three states. Marriage and family, the bedrock of civilizations for centuries, are at risk of being redefined into non-existence, and nearly half of American children are born out of wedlock, putting them behind the starting line before the race is even run. The Bible describes the role of government as punishing the wrongdoer and rewarding those who do good, and the only way government can fulfill its role is through the use of force, whether it’s the law, police, the courts, or the armed forces. In short, government is designed to be a blunt instrument for keeping order and administering justice, and trying to use it to do what Christ called the church – His church – to do is using the wrong tool for the job. The results should make this readily apparent.

4) Making disciples – or enemies? – Another unintended consequence of relying too much on government is that the prime directive for all Christians, the Great Commission, goes unfulfilled. Jesus uses our works not just to meet the physical needs of the hurting and helpless, but to minister to their souls as well, and give them the desire to know Him more. When we outsource our compassion to government, we have effectively surrendered any opportunity to make disciples for Christ. Moreover, using the force of law to achieve our ends is unbiblical, and it makes adversaries of the people we are supposed to be reaching. From the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, God has always allowed us free will, and it is contrary to His nature to compel anyone to love or obey Him.

5) Voting for Pharaoh – My pastor friend likens our participation in the electoral process to “voting for Pharaoh.” Certainly, government has been indifferent at best and hostile at worst to the values of the church, yet we show them a level of deference that he equates to embracing our oppressors.

6) Politics as the golden calf – Idolatry in ancient times took the form of graven images, and the old saying “putting someone up on a pedestal” describes how we often elevate some people as if they are greater than the rest of us. Watching the behavior of people at a political rally, however, really brought home for me the concept of idolatry, or counterfeit gods, to use pastor Timothy Keller’s term. I’ve seen more emotion and expressiveness at political rallies than I see in many churches, and the outpouring of our personal wealth, time and devotion to politicians and political causes is not only unhealthy for a nation founded on the precepts of human equality and the rule of the people over their government, it is essentially worship for someone or something other than the Creator of the Universe.

7) The church divided – This is perhaps the most heart-rending outcome of politicized Christianity, at least for me. There should be no “left” or “right” in the church, but the reality is that Christians take opposing stands on political issues which result in such categorization, and I believe it grieves the heart of God. Too many Christians put their politics ahead of their faith, in deed if not in word, and the church, rather than standing as one and acting as God’s messenger to the world, is just as divided and in conflict as everyone else. The church is meant to be an influence on society, yet it often allows itself to be consumed by society, and elevates acceptance to a higher plane than righteousness.

My pastor friend cites as his rallying cry Philippians 3:20 (“But our citizenship is in heaven”) and Malachi 3:7 (“Return to me and I will return to you”). He says it’s time for the church to stop using secular institutions to achieve Godly ends. Certainly, after examining the cost of politicized Christianity, he makes a compelling case for Christians to “go Galt.”

Bible professor Wayne Grudem, however, in his book, Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, rejects the notion of total disengagement from the political process, along with four other “mistaken” views on Christian involvement in politics, and instead defends the view of “significant Christian influence on government.” He states, “I wrote this book because I was convinced that God intended the Bible to give guidance to every area of life – including how governments should function!” Regarding his conclusions, he says “I see these positions as flowing out the Bible’s teachings rather than positions that I hold prior to, or independently of, those biblical teachings.”

I’ve spoken with colleagues and other pastors on the topic, and I’m continuing to read Dr. Grudem’s book, which is very comprehensive and firmly grounded in Scripture. The next installment in this series will tackle his view of the Christian’s role in politics.

In the meantime, let me ask you – should Christians “go Galt”? I welcome your thoughts.