Sherry Knight Rossiter resides in Missoula, Montana, where she is a licensed mental health professional in private practice and an adjunct college professor. She is an unabashed Christian conservative, a former Army helicopter pilot, and a very concerned American citizen.
In June 1882, Arthur James Balfour, first Earl of Balfour, was quoted in the Leeds Mercury as saying, “There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
While this phrase is often interpreted to mean that statistics lie, that is not entirely correct.
Statistics represent, in a numerical manner, the interpretation of the data or information collected.
It's bad enough when the Biden Administration’s poor policy decisions cause social and economic chaos in the United States, but now the consequences of Biden’s bad foreign policy decisions are bringing all out war to Israel, America’s only true Middle East ally for the last 75 years. On October 7 Hamas, most likely with the financial and political backing of Iran, managed to attack 21 separate Israeli locations all at the same time by air, land, or sea, and Israel apparently had no inkling this was about to happen.
The arrogance demonstrated almost daily by the Biden White House is absolutely astounding. Their latest idea to save the planet is to somehow find a way to block sunlight from reaching Earth in a desperate attempt to keep our planet from warming any further over the next few years. The White House has even prepared a report on what is termed solar radiation modification (SRM), but they claim the report was written only to comply with a mandate from a $1.5 trillion dollar spending bill in 2022, and there are no actual plans to pursue this idea. Only time will tell whether this idea is pursued, but the whole premise, in my opinion, smacks not just of incredible arrogance, but also of ignorance.
Even though the word “woke” is used multiple times per day by the media, many people still don’t understand what the word actually means. I can assure you that woke is not about being “trendy” or “cool” but about something far more insidious and dangerous.
Although the current online Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of woke seems fairly innocuous – “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues, especially issues of racial and social justice” – wokeness has now become a major tenet of Leftist (think American Marxism) ideology. In reality, being “woke” means you believe there is no absolute truth and no rules for right and wrong behavior. Unfortunately, without any rules or structure to our daily lives, there is also no meaning to our lives. I believe there is a direct correlation between the rising suicide rates in the United States and the proliferation of wokism.
Lately I’ve spent a good deal of time pondering the relationship between Truth and Freedom. I am capitalizing these words deliberately because they deserve to be treated with reverence and respect. Truth and Freedom are not only the bedrock of the U.S. Constitution, but also of Christianity. The older I get, the more I understand that Truth cannot exist without Freedom and Freedom cannot exist without Truth. In other words, they are two sides of the same precious coin.
In 1973, I was talked into going with a friend to see a science fiction movie called “Soylent Green.” This American-made movie was very disturbing and totally creepy even then, but as I now look back on the movie 30 years later, it is even creepier because I’m realizing the plot of this movie is beginning to be played out in current times.
In light of what we are witnessing and experiencing in the world today, integrity may seem like an old-fashioned concept unrelated to modern life. If we look up the definition of integrity in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, we will learn that integrity means “adherence to a strict moral or ethical code; incorruptible; honest; virtuous.” Unfortunately, when we read the daily news headlines, we may think there are no people left with any shred of integrity because almost every news story has to do with corruption, dishonesty, or lack of virtue.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a bestselling book titled Future Shock. The main point Toffler put forth is that the human mind cannot adapt to such rapid and multiple societal changes in a short period of time, and that continuing to experience rapid change would ultimately drive a human being insane. At the time this book was published, this idea was pretty radical. Whether or not Toffler’s premise is true is still open to debate. However, after 30 years as a mental health professional, I have seen plenty of evidence that being exposed to too much information in too short a time does cause personal stress and often disorientation, which in turn affects one’s decision making ability and sense of wellbeing.
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Whether Abraham Lincoln actually uttered the words in the above quotation may be debatable, but the words themselves remain true. There are many gullible people in this world, but not everyone can be fooled. It is especially difficult “to fool” another person when your actions do not match your words.
History shows that people are willing to put up with severe restrictions on their personal freedom as long as they believe those restrictions have merit (i.e., will keep them safe or keep them alive). This was clearly demonstrated from 1918 -1920 as the pandemic known as "the Spanish flu" killed 50 million people worldwide. Until then, the United States had never seen such all-encompassing restrictions including closure of schools, churches, bars, and other businesses. Severe fines were imposed by "the influenza police" for coughing, sneezing, or even talking or playing outdoors. Initially everyone was told to wear masks to stop the spread of the influenza
The term "gaslighting" has become very popular these days. As a licensed mental health counselor, I hear the term gaslighting most often in discussions with clients who find themselves in close or intimate relationships with narcissists. Everything a narcissist does is about power, control, and self-aggrandizement. Narcissists are true masters of gaslighting, and they can and will tell a bald-faced lie with an absolutely straight face.
Not only do narcissists blatantly tell lies, but they also adamantly deny they ever said or did something even if you can prove they said or did it via a video or audio recording. By now, I think you are beginning to see where I'm going with this discussion.
There is a big difference between being ignorant and being stupid. An ignorant person simply lacks knowledge, information, or training. A stupid person lacks good decision-making skills and basic common sense. For example, I am totally ignorant of welding protocol, but I’m not stupid. I have the common sense to know that welding can be a dangerous activity.
By the same reasoning, I don’t need a doctorate in public policy to recognize that the current level of illegal immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border is not just unsustainable, but downright dangerous for all concerned. I can see from video clips, both authorized and unauthorized, that the processing and containment facilities at the border are totally inadequate, inhumane, and dangerous even though the Biden administration is doing its best to keep the media and others from reporting the true facts.
In the last 12 months, I’m fairly certain that most of us have questioned our own sanity a time or two as we try to understand how to navigate the ever-changing regulations and guidance being disseminated not just by Dr. Fauci and the Center for Disease Control, but also from state and local government officials and our well-meaning family and friends. In my opinion, there are many more questions that need to be answered about the nature of COVID-19 and its impact on our future health before we will feel comfortable to live our lives without anxiety and foreboding. However, when our daily thoughts are consumed with worry and doubts about our personal safety, it is very hard to imagine a less stressful and happier life in the future.
“Follow the science,” they say, but then our current government leaders and other officials do just the opposite. For the last year, we have heard over and over from Dr. Fauci and other so-called medical experts, including the heads of city and county health departments, that masks must be worn and social distancing observed to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, Americans are learning that illegal aliens (for that is what they are when they enter a country without permission) are not only crossing the U.S. – Mexican border at unsustainable rates, but some are being put on buses bound for the interior of the United States even after testing positive for COVID-19. In addition, children and adults are being housed (and I use that word loosely) in areas and facilities where any type of social distancing is completely impossible due to the number of people.
Honor is a word that isn’t used much in contemporary society. Some may even consider the use of the word to be old-fashioned or unrealistic. So, what exactly is honor?
Honor involves the courage to do what is right no matter what the circumstances. “Doing the right thing” often requires some form of personal sacrifice, such as leaving an established career to join (or rejoin) the military after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on American soil.
Wake up, parents of school age children. If you care about your child’s mental health and future success, it’s imperative that you know what they are being taught in America’s public schools. Ever since schools stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance to begin the school day, public schools have been methodically dismantling our children’s sense of patriotism and knowledge about America’s founding. At first the dismantling was subtle, but it has now reached a never imagined level. It is no longer subtle and covert. It has now become blatantly overt and completely outrageous.
An astonishing number of people these days do not believe it is wrong to tell a lie or hide certain aspects of the truth. When did such blatant lying become socially acceptable?
When I was growing up in the 1950s in Fargo, North Dakota, I was taught by my parents, my teachers, and my pastor that telling a lie was wrong. Telling a lie was not just wrong from a moral or religious perspective, but it was wrong in the sense that it damaged my character. In other words, if I told a lie and was caught, I would no longer be viewed as trustworthy in another person’s eyes. Today we would say a person who regularly lies has no integrity.