WhatFinger


TV HAS BRAINWASHED MUCH OF OUR NATION

How We, As A Family, Finally Conquered Liberal Network TV!



Tom Selleck -- Copyright: Dave MerrickIn many of my articles I have mentioned that I don't watch tv, and haven't since 1987. Some people have written me and have accused me of doing a self-righteous act in mentioning that. Some have scolded me for inflicting my children with a 'goody two-shoes, forced piety'. Still others actually accuse me of lying, saying that 'everybody watches tv'. Well I don't. And let me qualify that my wife and I do enjoy watching DVDs of all sorts of movies occasionally. And we like some YouTube and some stuff on Netflix as well. We just don't do network stuff. [Author's Note: My favorite show on Netflix is "BlueBloods". I highly recommend that show. It is a STRONG show centered on a STRONG family with STRONG family values. All the actors on that excellent program are perfect for the characters they play, and are themselves excellent actors. Nevertheless, one of my all-time favorite entertainment personalities is the program's star, Tom Selleck. In further fact, I am a professional portrait artist, and years ago I did a big portrait for Tom. It was a graphite piece, larger-than-life size, of the character that Tom played in what was at the time his favorite movie, "Quigley Down Under". Often, while my wife and I are enjoying the program, I will pause it, look over at her and say, "Did I ever tell you about the time I did a portrait for Mr. Selleck? And have I told you how much he enjoyed that?" And her awestruck answer, after she rolls her eyes, is usually something like, "I don't remember, Mr. Humility. Will you please shut up and let me watch this?"]
But I 'get' the thing with TV. Some people can't seem to do without it. This is, after all, the 21st century which was largely populated by baby boomers, those my age and mentality, etc. And we, back in the 50s and 60s began refining the art of living much of our lives sprawled on the living room floor, and experiencing an artificial life vicariously through a droning television. But, again, as I have written several times in other articles, too many of us handed our minds and that of our progeny over to the tv that has proven to be a polluted and corrupt babysitter. I really believe that was the biggest mistake Americans ever made. I say that because it was the controlling television that soft-boiled our brains to the point that we actually opened ourselves to eight years of Bill Clinton, eight years of Barack Hussein Obama - and very nearly the nightmare of some hard time spent under the whip of Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, I understand the draw. Television is a cheap and instantly accessible opiate/escape for people who are today easily bored and feeling the need for distraction. [Another Author's Note: Of course television is not entirely bad, just as opium - when it is used as it should be - is a mercy and a blessing to many people who can be helped by it. The author was, for some years, paralyzed from his waist down. The television quite often kept me from going out of my mind when I could do nothing more than lie in bed. In fairness, there is a lot to be said about tv, movies and the cyber world which is not at all entirely evil. It is, like anything that is powerfully intimate and influential - and 'living' with us in our homes - something that should be kept under the control of the thoughtful homeowner, and not vice versa.] One evening, way back in 1987, my wife and my three children and I were watching our cable tv as we were finishing up some really fine spaghetti. Even when we had tv, my wife and I tried to be real careful about what our kids were watching. We then loved the still nascent Disney channel. And there were lots of good old classic movies and other 'G-rated' programs that were safe for our little ones. We would never tell our kids to 'leave the room' while we watched something they shouldn't. That wasn't fair.

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[Yet Another Author's Note: One of the current, really popular lies propagated throughout tv-land is that grown-up people are largely borderline idiots, and that the youngsters of today are really unrecognized geniuses that should be looked upon as role models for the doddering elderly. Do you challenge that? Look around at the movements spawned from such brainwashing. Today we have groups of masked thug-babies like ANTIFA and others throwing fits for the political left that uses these brats' mouths and their spoiled-rotten terror tantrums as their own Red Guard/Hitler Youth just as Mao and Adolph did in their day. And beyond that we have unprecedentedly ridiculous aberrations like an alleged 17-year-old rising up as a majorly influential spokesman for gun control - who is also billed as a 'Joan of Arc' style hero-figure used and promoted by the left and their partnering tv media people. And adult people - WHO SHOULD BE LEADING AMERICA AND SETTING THE EXAMPLES FOR OUR YOUTH - are groveling before this sort of insanity - BECAUSE TV HAS BRAINWASHED MUCH OF OUR NATION INTO DOING JUST THAT.] Okay, we were watching TV that night - and during a station break halfway through some nature program, a teaser came on for some really popular situational comedy show (that we never watched) which was to air the following night. The announcer, in his snappy, deep and smiling, manly voice blurted out, "TOMORROW NIGHT ON (whatever program it was)!! SEE THE HOT ACTION THAT HAPPENS WHEN THE WATER GETS TURNED ON!!" And some guy standing behind an unbelievably beautiful woman (with all the most outlandish 'software') poured a 5 gallon bucket of water over her head. And her T-shirt - disappeared - quite literally. All my little family in the living room went silent. My two boys quietly got up and went to their bedrooms, respectively, to 'think about' what they had just seen. I am as well, in that department, wired like any normal heterosexual male, and I had a difficult time getting what I had just seen out of my own mind. My wife, a businesswoman and promoter who was used to seeing all sorts of wacko stuff and dealing with all sorts of wacko people, was generally unaffected. But my daughter - my sweet and SO TENDER AND INNOCENT, seven-year-old daughter - she just sat and looked at the floor in front of her ... She was silent, sad and blushing. Sitting crosslegged, not so interested in the show we had been watching, she was mostly fiddling with some doll furniture and contented in just being part of the family. Her sad eyes looked up at mom and me, and she asked, "When I grow up, that won't happen to me, will it? I hope not. It wasn't very good for her, was it dad?"

I looked down at my daughter and smiled, and gently began in my most kindest and understanding fatherly voice, "Well, honey ... sometimes on the TV we see stuff that is, well ... And at that moment, in my heart, I could feel the voice of the God who gave me my wonderful family. And He said to me, "Oh, come on, David! You're actually going to pitch your DAUGHTER with the same malarkey you sold to your boys?! And I could hear myself in times past, saying, "Sometimes, honey, we see things on TV that are not very nice. But we just don't pay any attention to that. We have the cable for the good things that we can watch. And the other stuff, we just sort of ignore ..." He was pleading with me to come to my senses at that point. "Are you REALLY going to groom your baby girl for that sort of spineless compromise. Do you want to even chance her having any part in that horror?!" At that juncture, I looked at my daughter and said, "NO, baby! It wasn't good at all. They were laughing at her and not respecting her." And then my little one came and crawled into my lap as I next addressed my wife. "Honey, tomorrow let's get this cable-junk out of our house." And her immediate response was, "The world and all its garbage needs to stay outside of our home! Let's do it! We don't need to be inviting that stuff in to spend the evening with our sweet family." And that was the way it went down. The very next morning I disconnected the cable out at the box in the alley. And my wife called and canceled our subscription. If I remember right, we took a beating for that was owed for the couple of months left in our contract. That was fine with us. But in my heart and mind, I remembered that the Bible tells us that we shouldn't frustrate our children. So I picked up a VHS tape player (this was back when DVDs hadn't come along). And every weekend we had a couple of movie nights. We always let the kids pick out the movies they wanted, and often even an R-rated one could be picked. Mom and I would preview the ones we had doubts about, so we would know when to hit the fast-forward. It turned out to be a blast. And their friends would even invite themselves over for our movie and pizza nights.


We went several years like that, until we moved to an old farm in northeastern Nebraska. It was a beautiful place nestled in pastoral, rolling hills of wheat and corn with small forests of tall hardwood trees surrounding the farm houses and barns. By that time the kids were in their teens - and my oldest had just finished a stint in the Marine Corps and was out on the west coast wanting to start a diving business. The two remaining at home, daughter and son, were both driving and running around with their friends having fun. But we still would occasionally do a movie night together! One day, while everybody was in town getting groceries, a car came rolling up our long lane. As it neared the old bunkhouse that I had converted into my art studio, I ragged the paint off my brushes as I walked out to meet it. It was a wandering, satellite tv salesman up from Omaha. I stood there and politely allowed him to give me his pitch. Something got into my head, who knows what, and I took his brochures and business card, and told him I would call him after I'd spoken with my family. That evening at the supper table in our big old farmhouse, I opened up and told everybody about the visitor we'd had that day. "There was a guy selling satellite tv dishes today. I told him I would run what he said past you guys, and I'd call him tomorrow with our decision. I didn't feel right, speaking for everybody else. We're all 'grown-Up ' now, and I just figured that maybe you guys aren't as in love as I am with all the quiet we have out here. And I thought you might be getting bored, not having anything more exciting or sophisticated in our pastimes beyond the lightning storms we watch together." [On stormy nights we would light the kerosene lanterns in our living room and open up the big front door and screened windows. Lolling in the oak swing and rocking chairs out on the porch, we listened to Spike Jones records on a crank-up phonograph. The electrical storms were an incredible show and we had the best seats in the world. On such wonderful and breezy nights we just giggled and talked and ate bunches of fresh buttered popcorn while the lightning crashed all around the field in front of our old farmhouse on the hillside.]

To my total and complete joy and satisfaction, both my 'kids' came out of their chairs and nearly came across the table at me! While my 18-year-old son was wagging his head in agreement with her, my daughter was scolding me. "Dad! Are you nuts?! THAT'S WHY WE HAVE THE FAMILY WE HAVE!! You weren't SERIOUSLY considering allowing that stuff back in our house, were you?!" And I, pretty anemic at that point, answered. "Well, yeah ... maybe ... If you guys were at all interested. But I guess not." And that was the end of that. Today my kids are taking care of their own families. My oldest son, Travis, has gone on home to be with the Lord. (And I so much miss him.) Nevertheless, his sister and brother and my grandchildren are still free-brained , happy and healthy! And we did it all without a "village". And that's because a village (and the TV that brings much of that mess into a home) can't begin to love your children (nor should it be allowed) as closely and carefully as godly parents who just naturally love their children. So, when you hear me talking about the fact that I'm not a tv watcher, you must remember that it wasn't because of any ultra-moral or stoic fiber in my character. Heck, when that T-shirt disappeared, I was just as attentive as my two sons. And, in fact, I don't know that I will ever be completely immune to that, no matter how much Bible studying I might do. But the whole 'moral' to this story, if there is one, is that being a real godly father and manly man starts with just listening to and obeying the voice of our good Father above when he speaks (a thing I'm still daily struggling to perfect). And, if you're wondering how a family can 'survive' in the 21st century without a television running all the time ("But wait! There's more!"), trust me when I tell you this: After the TV left our house, we actually got to know each other BETTER THAN EVER! And in the evenings, when homework was done and it was not yet movie night, we became past masters of all sorts of games - from Monopoly to Skittles. And we went to bed each night, after having paid attention to each other, AS REAL FAMILIES SHOULD, much happier than if we had been ignoring each other while watching worthless stuff on a TV (that we lived much better without).

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Dave Merrick -- Bio and Archives

Dave Merrick, Davemerrick.us is an internationally known and published artist whose works reach into the greatest diversity of audiences. Known primarily for his astoundingly lifelike portraiture, Merrick’s drawings and paintings grace the walls of an impressive array of well-known corporate and private clientele. Many of his published wildlife pieces have become some of America’s most popular animal imagery.

He has more original work in the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame than any other artist. His wildlife and Southwestern-theme work is distributed internationally through Joan Cawley Galleries of Scottsdale AZ.


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