Mike Huckabee
My Fox show monologue:
I’ve said some controversial things from time to time, but none which prompted such a backlash as when I stated that the horrific shooting in CT of school children and teachers couldn’t be blamed on God because we’ve systematically marginalized God out of our culture by removing Him from all aspects of the public square. The vicious attacks that have resulted, most of all of which are based on total ignorance of what I actually said have actually validated my point, but I’m quite certain that was not the intent of both the professional and amateur critics who have demanded everything from my being banned from ever speaking in public again, or wished me a slow and painful death. On that alone, I wish to acknowledge that the left has again shown that it defines tolerance and diversity as being tolerant only of that with which it agrees, and diverse only to include slight shades of the orthodoxy of liberalism to which they adhere. They abhor censorship of their own profanity, obscenities, or graphic violence, but are the first to demand that a voice that invokes the name of God to be silenced. A specific act of violence is rarely the result of a specific single act of a culture that prompts it. In other words, I would never say that simply taking prayer and Bible reading from our institutions or silencing Christmas carols is the direct cause of a mass murder. That would be ludicrous and simplistic. But the cause and effect we see in the dramatic changes of what our children are capable of is a part of a cultural shift from a God-centered culture to a self-centered culture. We have glorified uninhibited self-expression and individualism and are shocked that we have a generation of loners. We have insisted on a society where everyone gets a trophy and no one loses and act surprised that so many kids lack self-esteem and feel like losers. We dismiss the notion of natural law and the notion that there are moral absolutes and seemed amazed when some kids make it their own morality to kill innocent children. We diminish and even hold in contempt the natural family of a father and mother creating and then responsibly raising the next generation and then express dismay that kids feel no real connection to their families or even the concept of a family. We scoff at the need for mothers and fathers to make it their priority to train their children to be strong in spirit and soul and responsible for right and wrong and exalt instead the virtue of having things and providing expensive toys, games, and electronics that substitute for parenting and then don’t understand why our kids would rather have ear buds dangling from their ears, fingers attaching to a smart phone, and face attached to a computer screen than to have an extended conversation with their family at dinner. And we don’t teach them there is a Creator God who sets immutable rules, a God who is knowable, and to whom we are ultimately responsible. Instead we teach that God was not involved in our origins, that our very lives are biological happenstances and in fact are disposable should they be inconvenient to us, and that any outrageous behaviors are not sin, but disorders for which we should be excused and accommodated. I realize my viewpoint sounds out-dated and archaic, but when that world view was the foundation of our nation’s social contract, we got in trouble at school for talking in class, chewing gum, pulling a girl’s pigtails, or slouching in our school desks. We took guns to school, to be sure, but they were in the gun racks of our trucks and we used them to hunt before and after school. It never occurred to us to use them to murder our teachers and fellow students. So yes, I can stand the contempt and criticism of the left. I’ll gladly accept their scorn as they substitute creative language with a steady stream of profanity-laced tirades that I’m an idiot, a throwback to the past, and a person who should be forever silenced. But when we as a nation feared God, we didn’t fear that a 20 year old with a high powered rifle would gun down our children in their schoolrooms.
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