Page 5 - Jack Batson News Today

On the Left: That old time religion Jack Batson: On the Left One of the great debates of the last, oh, 150 years is if capitalism should be regulated. The answer is staring us in the face – yes. The beginning of the latest debates began with Ronnie Reagan and may now end with the Great Freeze in Texas. I’m going to show that without regulation, capitalism becomes irresponsible and predatory. Fasten your seat belts! When it’s not morphing into monopolies (more on that problem another time)...

Today we’re going to delve deeper into the whole topic of propaganda, sophistry and the dark arts of arguing. Do you remember “sophistry”? That’s taken from the people – Sophists – who debated Socrates a long time ago and always came up short. So they discovered how to convince people using less tha

On the Left: The Swan Song Jack Batson: On the Left “Bolshevism has proved some strange and disturbing things about human nature. It has proved that what is important for people is not what is there but what they conceive to be there. It has shown [that] it is possible to make them feel and believe practically anything. And it makes no difference whether that ‘anything’ is true.” So wrote George Kennan, one of America’s greatest diplomats. He wrote it in 1944 after having watched a ge...

In response to “Read what’s on your mind?” by Jack Batson published in the Daily Republic on Jan. 18, I ask, what’s IN your mind/soul? The columnist may be erudite but he misses or misinterprets some messages. Yes, we have many blind spots as humans. Most conservatives are no

Do you have blind spots? I do. Love has blind spots. That’s why, when someone marries someone who has glaring flaws, the other can’t see them. “Love is blind,” we sadly say. Hate has blind spots. That’s when we hate someone but we cannot see the good in that person – good that is inevitably there. W

On the Left: Are white evangelicals really Christians? Part 2 Jack Batson: On the Left Let’s continue my understanding of white, conservative evangelical Christianity – well described by the book, “Jesus and John Wayne,” by Kristin DuMez. Evangelicalism by the 1980s had become overtly political with Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, declaring, “Get saved, get baptized, get registered.” Falwell encouraged a fighting faith, saying we are “fighting a holy war” and that the chur...

On the Left: Are white evangelicals really Christians? Part 1 Jack Batson: On the Left Several weeks ago, as Donald Trump was ramping up his attempted coup d’état, the popular evangelical TV commentator Eric Metaxas cried in anguish, “I’d be happy to die in this fight. This fight is for everything. God is with us. Jesus is with us in this fight for liberty.” God is with Trump and his assault on democracy? Supported by Christians? As a mainline Christian myself, I am confused. Democracy...

On the Left: ‘Goodbye, democracy,’ or, ‘Our little coup d’etat’ Jack Batson: On the Left I had lunch with friends on two different days last week. It was a historic week in politics, but the conversation didn’t venture into that topic. No one was particularly aware of what was happening. Shocked, I realized that perhaps few were following the news. May I summarize in case you’re starved of outrage? History books may well call December 2020 a turning point in American history. It w...