Is there a common thread between Secretary Clinton’s emails and Black Lives Matter? I think so. There’s at least one, anyway – maybe more.
It’s all entirely too convenient for the Democratic Party.
But look! Over there! It’s a change of subject!
The attention has been suddenly removed from FBI Director James Comey. The spotlight is off of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. We’re not going to focus on Director Comey’s egregious doublespeak or Secretary Clinton’s flagrant dishonesty right now.
We’re not going to talk about how Comey told the American public three days ago that Clinton deliberately, blatantly, and repeatedly broke Federal rules and laws concerning the handling of classified, Top Secret material. Or how Comey then made it clear that Clinton lied and destroyed evidence in an effort to hide it and protect herself from the consequences of breaking those same Federal rules and laws, and probably more rules and laws besides.
We’re not going to talk about how Comey readily admits that anyone besides Hillary Clinton engaged in similar behavior would be prosecuted. Anyone besides Clinton would almost certainly be terminated from their government job and probably prevented from receiving security clearance in the future. Anyone besides Hillary Clinton might even spend time in jail or face other fines and penalties. They certainly wouldn’t be eligible for promotion, especially not to President of the United States of America.
Our dedicated mainstream media has only just a little time this morning for the huge bombshell of Comey’s advice not to prosecute Clinton, or his testimony before the House oversight committee yesterday concerning that advice and the FBI investigation leading up to it. If attention ever turns back to Comey and Clinton, many Americans will likely scratch their heads wondering why we were ever so upset about it all to begin with. It’s terribly convenient, entirely too convenient, for the Democratic Party.
So why? Why is this story of rampant corruption and incompetence in the highest levels of the United States government suddenly not getting coverage?
Because sniper fire erupted during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas last night, taking the lives of five police officers. That’s why.
The Dallas shooting of police officers at a Black Lives Matter protest will perhaps forever change the conversation about justice in America.
The identity and motives of the Dallas shooter are still unclear. Many of the details remain fuzzy. Yet this story is seemingly all anyone can talk or think about this morning.
My Facebook feed is full of cell phone videos of Philando Castile taking his last breaths and of Dallas PD ducking behind their patrol cars. My friends and family are all busy shaking their heads in shock and disbelief and passionately debating with one another about racism, police brutality, and what’s to be done about it all.
As I scroll through the numerous expressions of outrage and dismay, I see that some have suggested a possible conspiracy linking Clinton’s email scandal and the Dallas shooting. Nobody has quite directly stated that the government shot its own police officers so as to divert attention away from Hillary Clinton, but the implication is clearly there.
It’s a pretty big claim to make without evidence, and I’m not going to launch into trying to prove or disprove conspiracy theories. Yet I will remark that the choices politicians and media outlets make in the next several days on how much coverage and of what sort to give these two stories very much is hotly debated in closed-door meetings between media producers and political staffers. The outcome of those meetings won’t be accidental or coincidental, and it most certainly will be coordinated and carefully planned.
It’s important that we recognize what Clinton’s emails and Black Lives Matter have in common.
Think about it with me for a moment. In the cases of both Clinton’s mishandling of classified material and the Black Lives Matter protests and subsequent police shootings the underlying complaint is strikingly similar:
Our government holds us to one standard and holds itself to another. Certain people within the government routinely receive a pass for doing things which anyone else would be prosecuted, imprisoned, fined, or disqualified from future employment for.
Regardless whether this latest Black Lives Matter tragedy is a manufactured crisis, regardless whether coverage of it has been intentionally planned to take attention off Clinton so she can maintain public support ahead of the November elections, it is a fact that Americans of every color and political affiliation feel there is rampant and systemic dishonesty and injustice in the American government. That’s the common thread between Clinton’s emails and Black Lives Matter.
Americans – Democrat and Republican, black and white, no longer trust their government to deliver justice or tell the truth. We don’t trust our mainstream media to report the facts and circumstances to us honestly. Instead we take it for granted that our government and news outlets are colluding with one another to deceive and mislead us for their benefit.
The Dallas shooting takes things to another level, however. When it’s open season on killing cops in American streets, we’ve turned a new corner. When anyone, much-less a large portion of the American public, can respond to these killings with cheers or attempting to justify the anger that precipitated them, we’re entering very dangerous waters indeed.
Perhaps this is why Proverbs 20:23 tells us:
“Unequal weights are an abomination to Yahweh,
and false scales are not good.”
Yet we would do well to remember the promise of God to the people of Israel through the prophet Isaiah.
“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”
In short, what Clinton’s emails and Black Lives Matter have in common is sin – dishonesty, selfishness, abusive speech and actions, contempt for truth and justice, and a rejection of the inherent dignity and worth of our fellow man. Left to continue on in themselves, these sins will produce more and worse sins and ultimately lead to death, just as God’s Word assures us.
Yet where these sins in our nation will produce more and more strife apart from God’s redeeming grace, our nation can be restored if We The People repent of our wickedness and folly and return to faithful obedience to God’s commands and teachings. Governing and governed alike are sinners in need of grace, and it’s well past time every American from the highest to the lowest remembered that.
As we prepare to navigate the dangerous waters ahead, it’s well past time we ask ourselves if we haven’t already: Have we confessed and repented of our own sins? Have we prayed for our nation? Have we committed ourselves fully to truth and impartial justice regardless of ethnicity or political affiliations? Are we prepared for what comes next if our nation does not repent and turn back to God?
