I have written many times about spending the first five years of my life with my Quaker grandparents in Pennsylvania. The Swarthmore Meeting, located on the campus of Swarthmore University, remains today one of the most liberal enclaves in all of American academia. I learned about “tolerance and acceptance” by attending many Quaker meetings as a child with my grandparents, but not in the way most people might think.
My Quaker grandparents had a son who was a Naval fighter pilot during the Korean War and the early days of the Vietnam War—when most people hadn’t even heard of Vietnam. I remember my grandparents being “shunned”; people would turn their backs to them as we walked into Meeting because they had a son fighting as a pilot in the U.S. Navy. At the time, I didn’t understand any of this, but I remember feeling upset by the demeanor of these “conscientious objectors” who, even today, preach peace and tolerance but often, in my experience, are among the least tolerant group of people I have met. YOU CAN’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.
Sixteen years after graduating from college, I returned to Swarthmore and attended Meeting with my grandmother, whose family had practiced the Quaker faith for at least five generations—including participation in the Underground Railroad and Susan B. Anthony marches. Over lunch, we talked about those days, and this wisest of women told me she never once wavered from her faith or her belief in what my uncle (her son) stood for. She explained there is a big difference between tolerance and acceptance: we can tolerate ideas but should never tolerate evil actions. We can accept those who differ from us, but that does not mean we must accept their ideas or their actions.
We cannot judge what is in people’s hearts, but we can judge their actions and form opinions about their words.
Many Christians retreat to perceived positions of prudence and tolerance—including religious leaders in the Catholic and Protestant Church. Yet, we are called to confront evil in real time, in all its forms. When we see a bully, we must confront the bully. When we hear hate speech, we must speak up. If one is waiting in a food line in the Officer’s Mess on a Navy ship and sees a Filipino messman being bullied by a senior officer, one must confront evil—on the spot, no matter the consequences.
I am tired of the intolerance demonstrated by some on the political left against Jewish and Christian communities, MAGA, MAHA, the unborn child, and the evil of transgender indoctrination by educators and medical professionals. I am also weary of the laissez-faire mentality of the American public as we attempt to combat the evils of drug abuse. Since 1970, drug overdoses have claimed more lives in our country than all military and civilian casualties in all our wars since our founding. Last year, 100,000 souls died from fentanyl overdoses—EVIL.
In 2023, approximately 1,026,700 abortions were performed in the United States, the highest number in more than a decade, according to multiple sources. Since 1973, estimates suggest the total number of abortions in the U.S. exceeds 63 million, with some sources reporting over 65 million. Today, I heard a debate featuring Charlie Kirk and a pro-choice Catholic student. She opined that abortion was the termination of a fetus, not a real human being. Charlie, with a smile, asked her what species the fetus belonged to. The only way the pro-choice community can attempt to justify taking the life of an unborn child is to dehumanize the child and the process. WHAT SPECIES IS THAT CHILD? Please tell me. You don’t need a professional degree, or to be a geneticist or biologist, to answer that question. Just common sense.
In 2007, then-Congressman Bill Sali told me there were people on the political left in Washington, D.C., who hated conservatives. At the time, I thought his words were overly dramatic. Tonight, in a month when children were assassinated while praying at a Catholic Mass in Minnesota, the day when Charlie Kirk, one of the greatest Christian Conservative voices in our country, is assassinated, in a year when a former President and now President endured two assassination attempts—one killing a father and husband in Butler, Pennsylvania—I am left to believe Mr. Sali may have been prescient in his assessment of our political adversaries.
Below is a link to Congressman Jasmine Crockett’s hateful comments, followed by President Trump’s words tonight reassuring our nation after the news that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated.
https://www.eonline.com/news/1422335/donald-trump-video-speech-on-charlie-kirks-death
The words speak for themselves. I do not tolerate or accept such words coming today from the political left. Only John Fetterman has been a voice in the wilderness for the Democratic Party. The evil in the hearts of so many on the political left must be confronted—never accepted, never tolerated.
The outrage of the “Russian Hoax,” “Peepee tapes,” 91 fictional indictments of Donald Trump, two impeachments, and the “Epstein connection” are all part of a desperate political narrative that grows more desperate each day. I believe that, absent any substantive ideas and solutions, the only thing left in the Marxist socialist playbook is to create havoc in our country and destroy the very institutions that have created the greatest economy and the greatest liberties in world history. Chaos and asymmetric political warfare funded by progressive liberal oligarch billionaires—many from other countries—is all they have left.
AND THEY KNOW IT.
Confronting the evil of atheistic, progressive Marxism is our only chance to save our country.
Mr. Trump knows that. Charlie Kirk knew that. I believe the majority of American people who are Christians and Conservatives know that.
