Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then the master called the servant in.  ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’  In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

• Matthew 18:32-35

“McCarthyism – a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not in fact belong to the Communist Party.”

• Oxford Language online

Can I do some editing here?

“McCarthyism Cancel Culture- a vociferous campaign against alleged communists non-Woke people in the US government society and other institutions countries carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy by social media and other groups in the period 1950–54 until the insanity stops. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not in fact belong to the Communist Party do anything wrong or it was done prior to wokeness out of innocence.”

I did not have to change a lot, but everyone condemns Joe McCarthy, and they are now praising Cancel Culture.  The insidious thing is that Cancel Culture has no face.  These people are gutless cowards who hide behind anonymity, but they have the power to cause people to lose their employment or be blacklisted so that they never get employed again.

Can someone tell me whether Kate Smith’s statue in Philadelphia, the “city of love”, is 1. Uncovered, 2. Continued to be covered, or 3. Removed?  She sang a racially insensitive song 80 years ago and she was cancelled posthumously.  And that was before Cancel Culture was in full swing.

I know some people that would argue with the words of Jesus above.  I have heard people say, “Whatever I did, I meant to do.  I will not accept forgiveness.  I will never forgive.”

I wonder if those people have many friends.  I hurt people that I love far too often, and I do so largely because I blunder forward, saying or doing something that I think is safe to do, but then someone gets offended.  I meant no harm, but harm was done.  C. S. Lewis said something similar, adding that in most cases, he never knew that he had created an offense, and it was never intentional. He added that when he intended to offend, they simply laughed it off.

So, if you stand by your intentions and your own conscience and refuse to forgive others, you are quite naïve indeed.

My wife is having cognitive issues.  She said this morning that someone had complained that I do not write about that enough.  I do not wish to embarrass her.

But her issues have led to verbal battles.  I have a problem with correctness.  For years at work, it was my job to correct the other instructors and to instruct the class what the correct statement should have been.  I got good at making it sound like I was rephrasing their statement, but when I was saying the exact opposite, many in the class saw through that.

A couple of times in the past month, my wife and I have had this conversation.

ME: I just did as you asked and the answer to your question is …
MY WIFE: Oh, that is not the answer I wanted to hear, but thank you for getting back with me, but I was also wondering about that question I asked you about.  Have you found the answer?
ME: I just told you the answer.
MY WIFE: I told you never to correct me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then she goes into a rant about how I yelled.  I got in her face and intimidated her.  I was a bully and she could throw a rock and find a hundred better husbands.

I meant no harm, but I found myself apologizing for “yelling” when I never yelled.  Not repeating the answer since she had forgotten what I said thirty minutes before – although she acknowledged the answer and repeated the question in the same breath, less than thirty seconds, less than one second.  I did not bully.  I did not intimate.  And if she threw a rock, I would probably be the only man within throwing distance.

But why was I apologizing?  It reminded her that she has a problem.  She is taking medicine that is designed to slow down the progress of her condition, and it is working.  But stress seems to work against her gains, and she may never get any better.  She is afraid, and I remind her of that fear.  She translates that into yelling, talking down to her, etc. when those things never happened, intentional or unintentional.  She simply hears it that way through her fear filter.  I intended no harm, but to hear her reaction, I should be cancelled. But please do not cancel me, for my wife will say only a few hours later that she is blessed to have me around. I never liked roller coasters, but I am getting used to them.

Funny, I never thought about writing that when I came up with this idea of the parallels between McCarthyism and Cancel Culture – just opposites on the political spectrum.  But the bottom line is that with both systems, there is the lack of forgiveness, and there is infringement from both onto our freedom of speech.

McCarthyism is flawed in that it smacked of totalitarianism.  It infringed on freedom of speech.  Was Hollywood highly liberal and brainwashing the public in the 1950s?  Yes, and they still are.  He was right square on target, but the proper reaction would be to create an equal and opposite “Hollywood” and let the public decide.

Opposing views can never harm us if we are right.

That two equal voices thing would work today, except that someone decided that if they get offended, they have been injured.  They need a safe place where they only hear their own views repeated over and over.  And then there was social media.

Yes, you have been injured, but for about 6,000 years that “injury” has resulted in growth.  Maybe the other person has a point, other than the point on top of their head.  Maybe you are right, but you must find a better way to express your views.  Or Maybe if the guy is always saying this from this street corner, you can take a different route in getting to work (or school) and not let it bother you.  If we focus on licking our wounds and saying how bad the world is, we will never heal, much less grow.

God forgives.  When we accept Jesus as our Savior, God forgives us, and He remembers our sins no more.  No McCarthyism or Cancel Culture there.  If you think about it, God DOES cancel something.  He cancels the debt for our sin.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.