Although the lockdowns have been ending at various times in different states, we are discovering that some people are scared to go back to normal life. Anna Russell writes about this in the New Yorker. Some Americans are facing full-blown withdrawal.

A report by the American Psychological Association, published in March, found that almost half of Americans surveyed felt “uneasy about adjusting to in-person interaction” after the pandemic. What was so interesting is the fact that the numbers did not change among the fully vaccinated. In-person socializing feels both exciting and anxiety-producing.

The author of The Art of Gathering suggests that “our social muscles have atrophied.” We have “been through a transformative experience together” and now need to deal with the anxiety of “reentry.” The feelings may not be rational or logical.

Arthur Bregman is a psychologist in Florida and has coined the term “cave syndrome.” He has been seeing patients for more than forty years but sees something unique. Even people who are fully immunized are reluctant to venture out. “People can’t shake the anxiety” he said. “They feel fearful and insecure about the uncertainty of the situation.”

He has also found that people experience “cave syndrome” at different levels of severity. Some have a mild queasiness at the thought of a trip to the grocery store. Other have full-blown withdrawal from friends and family.

Judith Beck, president of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, says that COVID-19 furnished many of her patients with “a socially acceptable reason to stay home and not put themselves out there so much.”

Fear and anxiety are topics the church must address as we try to bring our world back to normal.

In our digital world, the major media organizations are allowed to shove inconvenient facts and headlines from the past down “the memory hole.” In the book, 1984, the “memory hole” was a small chute leading to an incinerator. Winston Smith, while working at the Ministry of Truth, was given the task of throwing documents into the “memory hole” in order to create a forgery of the past.

In a recent column, Michael Brendan Dougherty, reflects on how easy that has become in our digital world. “With the Internet, there is no paper trail to burn. There is just code to update.” A good example can be found in the Washington Post headline that appeared in February of last year. It referred to Senator Tom Cotton’s “conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” Recently the headline was changed from debunked to disputed because the consensus has changed, and the original headline was sent down the media memory hole.

When I talked on radio about the way the media has given itself permission to change past inconvenient facts and headlines, I mentioned that we have always been told that the Internet is forever. We tell our children to be careful about what they post on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Someday, it might come back to haunt you, since the Internet is forever.

One example is the story of Caleb Kennedy, a 16-year-old, who dropped out of “American Idol” because of a video from four years ago. He was seated next to a friend wearing a hood that some people thought looked like the Ku Klux Klan. He wasn’t dressed that way. His friend was dressed as one of the characters in “The Strangers: Prey at Night.” And let me remind you, this video was made when he was just 12 years old!

Unlike the Washington Post, Caleb didn’t get to send that video down the memory hole. That seems incredibly unfair.

Yesterday I talked about how even some liberal commentators are very concerned about the arguments for Critical Race Theory. It turns out that if you are a critic of Critical Race Theory, you will be labelled as ignorant and racist.

Tom Gilson addresses those charges in a recent commentary. He quotes from a Texas state board of education member who write that critics “have no idea what critical race theory is, what it does, who the founders are. They’ve never read a book, much less a paragraph on it.” From there she goes on to use language I won’t use on radio or in this commentary.

He also quotes from another article that argued that critics don’t want to talk about racial disparities because they want to normalize the behavior and allow current patterns of behavior to continue. Tom Gilson says that the words “talk” or “talking” should up eight times in the article. But Critical Race Theory isn’t just about “talking about” racial disparities.

He quotes from a standard source (Understanding Critical Race Theory) written four years ago and hardly the most controversial book on the subject. That book provides the quote that I mentioned yesterday. It explains that “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.”

The book also argues that “radical measures are in order” because society is so racist. When it was written, the authors may not have meant “radical” involved riots, protests, and burning cities. But we have seen the natural result of arguing that America is systemically racist, full of white privilege, and in need of a social revolution to overturn the existing order.

I agree with Tom Gilson, He concludes that the critics of Critical Race Theory oppose it not from ignorance but because they truly understand its dangers.

Over the last few months, I have discussed many of the concerns with Critical Race Theory that come from a number of Christian leaders and philosophers. What is even more interesting is the criticism that is coming from liberals. Andrew Sullivan is one of these commentators sounding a warning that this perspective is “Removing the Bedrock of Liberalism.”

He begins by acknowledging that even trying to accurately define Critical Race Theory is difficult because of the “sheer volume of jargon words” that may be intended to “sow confusion.” He also asks himself through his commentary whether he is accurately portraying the theory and concludes that he is not exaggerating its attack on liberal modernity. Proponents of Critical Race Theory admit that they question the very foundations of “Enlightenment rationality, legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality.”

He also notes that the theory denies any claim to truth since “claims to truth are merely claims to power.” Secular liberals and Christians may disagree about many things, but at least they agree that truth exists and can be objectively discerned.

He also critiques that idea that nothing has changed. In other words, “slavery, segregation, mass incarceration are just different words for the same experience of oppression.” He add that Critical Race Theory can also be defined by what it is not. “It is not an open-ended inquiry into buried history.”

Finally, he notes that Critical Race Theory is the cuckoo in the academic nest. It used to be one school of thought. Over time, though, it has thrown out its competitors and does not allow open debate.

I applaud Andrew Sullivan for warning others about the dangers of Critical Race Theory which is dedicated to disrupting society and dismantling the concept of honest discourse.

Today is Flag Day, and it’s worth taking a moment to document its history. This holiday commemorates the date when the United States approved the design for its first national flag.

When the American Revolution began, the colonists weren’t fighting united under a single flag. Most regiments fought under their own flags. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to create a unified fighting force (the Continental Army) that would fight under the first US flag (the Continental Colors).

The flag they created didn’t last long. It was comprised of 13 red and white alternating stripes and a Union Jack in the corner. It was too similar to that of the British flag. George Washington realized that flying a flag that looked like the British flag was not a good idea. The two years later, the Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States should be 13 stripes, alternate red and white,” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

There are many claims to the first official observance of Flag Day. One took place in Connecticut, another in New York, and another in Philadelphia. The latter claim is often given the most attention because the citizens there worked to get Pennsylvania to be the first state to establish the June 14 Flag Day as a legal holiday. Although Flag Day is a national observance, Pennsylvania is the only state that recognizes it as a legal holiday.

Both Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge issued proclamations asking for June 14 to be observed as the National Flag Day. But it wasn’t until August 1949, that Congress approved the national observance.

I am so glad that today we can honor the US flag and American history.

President Biden wants to raise taxes. His plan is to repeal and replace the Trump tax cuts which not only will affect corporations but your income tax liability. So let me give you a brief history in order to put some of this into perspective.

After the Civil War, nearly all the taxes (including the nation’s first income tax) were repealed, and the federal government relied mostly on tariffs for revenues. This income was more than enough to run the government and generated significant surpluses. The problem is that tariffs are essentially a consumption tax that is regressive. The poor are adversely affected because they have to spend a higher percent of their income on necessities than the wealthy.

This created political pressure to institute an income tax on the rich. President Grover Cleveland and the Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress passed an income tax that affected only the wealthiest one percent of Americans. The tax was attacked in the court because it represented a “direct tax” which the Constitution requires to be apportioned equally among the states according to population. This was not the case and led to the Supreme Court striking down the law.

After that decision, pressure grew to tax incomes of the largely untaxed rich. President William Howard Taft proposed a constitutional amendment to legalize a personal income tax, while also imposing a tax on corporate profits as a stopgap measure.

By 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified. President Woodrow Wilson promptly passed a personal income tax. The corporate income tax was intended to be a stopgap but was left in place and often has been used by the rich to play one tax against the other.

When you look at the history of taxation in this country, you can see that the problem isn’t that Americans are under-taxed, but that government has overspent.

Earlier this week I talked about the rising crime rate, but there is an element that is different. Lee Smith explains that sometimes street violence has been used as a political tool. To understand this, we need only look to Arab countries where street violence is used to keep the “faithful” in line.

That may be an explanation for what has been happening in America. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were attacking Jews in major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Why would they be attacking American Jews in this country, if their anger was towards the nation of Israel? Some say this shows that the tensions in the Middle East have more to do with religion than what is happening in Gaza or the West Bank.

While that may be true, Lee Smith argues that these protests are really a political tool used to keep Democrats in line. That explains the diversity of the groups protesting. He acknowledges that “it makes no sense that activists from the LGBT wing show up in support of the pro-Palestinian wing.” But these disparate groups actually do have a goal, he says, “upholding the Democratic Party. When LGBT activists are called to demonstrate on behalf of Islamic terrorists, they show up to fly the flag not for Hamas but for the Democrats.”

He also notes that these groups rarely campaign in rural America or even in suburban America. Of course, they may have a fear of meeting a well-armed citizenry. But the greater desire may indeed be to merely keep the “party faithful” in line.

I had never really thought about why most riots and protests surface in only certain areas of the country. Lee Smith’s perspective helps provide a partial explanation for why riots and protests are found in certain cities and not in others.

Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier served in the newly created Space Force until recently. He was relieved from his post because he wrote a book denouncing Critical Race Theory and Marxism in the US military.

Conservative pundits and politicians have been warning of the influence of Critical Race Theory in education and parts of the federal government. This new book warns that there has been a woke takeover of sections of the military.

Those who serve in the military (soldiers, sailors, and even space guardians) take an oath to defend the US Constitution. Lohmeier said that it wasn’t his intent to engage in partisan politics. But he wrote the book because of the particular Marxist ideology that he saw being taught. His hope is that the Defense Department will return to being politically nonpartisan in the future. As one commentator asked, Did US soldiers die so Marxism could be taught to the military?

The firing of this officer has served a useful purpose. It is drawing attention to how woke ideology and critical theory are being introduced into the military. On my radio program, we have discussed other examples. For example, the Navy’s professional reading program promotes books that portray America as systemically racist. Some go so far as to argue that the US Constitution was drafted in an attempt to perpetuate white supremacy.

Leaders in the military haven’t said much other than to argue that Lohmeier was relieved of his duties “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead.” Last month, a group of Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the acting secretary of the US Space Force urging him to immediately reinstate the lieutenant colonel.

We should expect the military to defend America, not indoctrinate military personnel with radical Marxist ideas.

A crime wave has hit America, though many politicians are in denial of its existence. For example, the murder rate increased by more than 25 percent in the last year. That makes it the biggest jump in 60 years.

If you are looking for an explanation, you don’t have to look any further than the riots and rhetoric in the streets. A year of protests and a year of “defund the police” are two factors that can be linked to the increase in crime.

Most of the increase has taken place in Democrat-run cities. The homicide rate in New York City was up nearly 40 percent. The violent crime rate increased by 74 percent in Seattle and 55 percent in Chicago. One researcher found that 51 of the 57 largest cities in America saw increases in homicides.

The current crime wave will certainly influence future elections in these cities. Irving Kristol once observed that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Voters in these cities have been mugged (figuratively and sometimes literally) by the reality of increased crime. They probably aren’t likely to vote for candidates who promise to “defund the police” or release more prisoners onto the streets.

Another sad consequence of the crime wave has been the increasing assaults on Jewish people. Antisemitism has been a problem for years. A significant percentage of reported hate crimes in the past have been against Jews. Now that rioting and violence are in the streets, Jewish people are facing an increasing number of attacks.

The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas provide another justification for those looking for a reason to attack Jews. Likewise, increased attacks on Asian-Americans are supposedly justified because the virus came from China.

America is facing a crime wave, and the next election is one way is which voters can make their voices heard and bring about needed change.