The latest attack on the Alamo by the left takes up a mantle that hasn’t been discussed enough. In a series of articles promoting a forthcoming book, journalists are attacking the heart of Texas history by claiming that the Alamo defenders had personal problems.
This isn’t news to anyone who knows the history to any degree.
Attacking the defenders on this basis is deeply unfair to them. They were flawed, sure. So are we. So are those who are attacking the figures of history now.
We’re all human. We’re all flawed. Some of those flaws are products of the times in which we live. God calls King David a “man after my own heart” in the same Bible that exposes David’s many sins and flaws.
Some flaws are worse than others, but attacking people who held attitudes that were mainstream in their time — however abhorrent we find those views now — is a kind of injustice.
It also opens up today’s wokes to a future charge they will not like. If and when they’re defeated they’ll be compared to the Puritans of old, and will not come off well in the comparison.
Today when we think of the Puritans we either think of their move to the New World to escape persecution in England, or we think of them burning witches in Salem, Mass., a few decades later. The first portrait is largely positive, but the witch trials definitely are not. What’s largely forgotten is what the Puritans were up to in England during the same century.
England fell into civil war in 1641. The Puritans had everything to do with that. Their 17th-century wokeness drove the country apart and drove a king to the headsman’s ax. King Charles’ actions didn’t help. The civil war accomplished nothing. After all the killing was over, that dead king’s son took the throne and the monarchy resumed. Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell died of natural causes but his corpse was beheaded anyway.
In our time we have neo-Puritans demanding sinless perfection of everyone but themselves, past and present. One of these puritanical-aligned groups goes by the name of the Lincoln Project. This odious lot blasted and lied about Trump for years all while its own leader was allegedly grooming young boys for sex.
The Lincoln Project is looking more and more like an STD itself, a result of lying down with the wrong people and then never quite going away no matter what gets thrown at it. One of them, the Rick Wilson, was caught with a Confederate flag in his social media. Didn’t matter! Then there’s the grooming and the cover-up. Didn’t matter! They still get favorable press and they’re still raking in the dough from the left, bashing Republicans while claiming to be Republicans.
The Puritans of old at least had their minds on eternity when they attacked others. Eternity is serious business.
Today’s Puritan wokescolds don’t even believe in eternity. They want power now for its own sake. So the Puritans look better in comparison in that sense.
True, the Puritans of old amped up hysteria against witches and some of their targets were executed. Today’s woke Puritans amp up Twitter and settle for canceling their targets and subjecting them to lifelong torture and poverty. Neither is a good look. Today’s Puritans may not stop with canceling people.
We’re at an absurd point now where a singular, simplistic, racist view of complex life — critical race theory — has taken over the federal government and most of our institutions. Joe Biden did not run on it as a platform but he is ramming it into every nook and cranny of society he possibly can, as fast as he can. Our schools are drowning in it even while kids are failing at alarming rates. Our military is going woke. Like the Puritans of old, this tyranny brooks no compromise. It also threatens to tear the nation apart like the Puritans did in 17th-century England. It’s the province of scoundrels and it undoubtedly has communist China cheering it on while it laughs at Americans up its sleeve. Anything that weakens America is likely to strengthen China, which has ambitions to become the global king of the hill.
Left unchecked, today’s Puritanism can lead to very dark outcomes. The Khmer Rouge comes to mind. It can’t be left unchecked.
The Epoch Times reports that several lawsuits have been filed against today’s critical race theory Puritans. For too long, they’ve gotten away with accusing people of racism without having to provide a shred of evidence. Lawsuits can help push back and make the accusers squirm and feel some pain. They won’t get to preserve their impunity forever, not in courtrooms. Taking them to court may be the way to defeat today’s Puritans for good.
