Townhall Review | Commentaries

It happened right before our eyes, the destruction of one of the most important architectural achievements of western civilization: The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral, that historic church right in the center of Paris.

What burned was not just a tremendous loss to architecture, it was a tremendous loss to western civilization, and it points to an even greater loss: A spiritual loss that came before the architectural loss.

The fact that the national symbol was also a cathedral was itself a reminder that you can’t tell the story of western civilization, you can’t even tell the story of the Reformation or the modern age without talking about the age of the cathedrals.

The architecture of Notre Dame cries out: Christianity is at the center of our civilization.

Perhaps the saddest moment for Parisians came with the fall of the iconic spire at the center of the cathedral—a spire pointing to the heavens, with a cross at the very top pointing to God and the reigning Jesus Christ.

Notre Dame Cathedral, before and after the fire, remains now a symbol of Europe’s loss of faith.

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“It fits.”

Those were the words Tiger Woods uttered upon donning his 5th green jacket after his improbable and electrifying Masters victory.

President Trump subsequently notified Tiger that he’d be adding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to his trophy case.

That fits too.

Even the casual observer knows that his career has been marked by epic highs and tragic lows.

That’s what made Sunday’s victory all the more incredible.

It was the culmination of an ethereal professional career from a man whose impact on the game of golf is immeasurable, but a few numbers provide a glimpse:

10 years after Tiger turned pro, the number of golfers in the United States had increased by 25 percent.

20 years into Tiger’s career, the average total tournament purse had increased 352 percent and the average first place check by 378 percent.

The indelible images of Tiger’s first and perhaps last Masters wins—from hugging his dad to hugging his kids—are indications of how much Tiger has changed too.

It all fits.

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Bernie Sanders and his lefty friends are at it again. He’s reintroduced legislation to create a socialist-style takeover of our health care called Medicare-for-all.

Make no mistake: It would do just as much damage to our health care as would previous efforts to install a single-payer system.  Here are the facts:

• First, Medicare-for-all would cost tens of trillions of dollars on top of what the federal government already spends on health care. Even much higher taxes on every American worker wouldn’t pay for the socialist-style system that Sanders envisions.

• Second, Medicare-for-all would mean that many Americans would have to give up the health insurance coverage they currently have.  Like your plan today? Get ready to say goodbye to it.

• Finally, Medicare-for-all could compromise the existing care that our seniors on Medicare already receive by making it harder to gain access to the doctors and hospitals they trust.

Sanders and his allies have a way of making the awful sound great.

Don’t get fooled.

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Democrats won’t repeat their huge mistake of 2016—focusing on the popular vote and national polling while ignoring crucial mechanics of the Electoral College.

To unseat Trump, the Democrats must flip at least three of the nine crucial swing states Trump won last time. Now that won’t be easy, with perennial battlegrounds Ohio and Florida trending in a strongly Republican direction.

Instead, Democrats will concentrate on three heartland pick-ups: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

In all three states, Republicans fared very badly in 2018, losing Senate and governor’s races. Trump needs to hold just one of these three keystones and he’ll win: even if Democrats take both Michigan and Pennsylvania—the two larger prizes of the “key three”—Trump still gets 270 and wins the presidency by a single electoral vote.

Look for another close, fierce, fight to the finish!

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We have now seen a 180-degree turn from the “tolerance” movement in our country. First, they ordered us to be tolerant of those on the other side of the moral, political or sexual divide from us.

Now, the tolerance seekers are themselves increasingly intolerant. As Roger Kimball said recently, “The old idea … was summed up as ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ The new dispensation is: ‘I disapprove of what you say, therefore you may not say it.’”

Case in point: Greenpeace with Google’s assistance recently deleted Dr. Patrick Moore, from its list of founders. He disappeared just like ‘The Commissar Vanishes’ in Soviet Russia. Mr. Moore’s misdeed? He appeared on Fox News expressing skepticism of some recent climatology and was praised by President Trump.

Like in Stalinist Russia, history is being “upgraded.”

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Parents paying to get their children into elite colleges has shocked the nation. Meanwhile, a more prevalent and more insidious problem—campus politics and intolerance—goes unnoticed.

The latest comes at Hofstra where students demanded that a Thomas Jefferson statute be removed since it represents “a legacy of racism and bigotry.”

Never mind that the author of the Declaration of Independence fought slavery and in his first draft called for abolition. Students’ ignorance of history judging leaders of the past by today’s standards create intolerance and weaken education.

Meanwhile at Oregon State came a call to ban the Veteran Student Association from using a student lounge on campus. The students said they were “vulnerable to the ideological and practical consequences” of letting veteran students meet there.

Campus intolerance may not be criminal, but it is every bit as dangerous.

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Every election, candidates claim: “This is the most important election of our lifetime” but that’s generally untrue. For better or worse, no President since Reagan has profoundly transformed the country, but 2020 could well be different.

Democrats seem determined to run on a radical, irresponsible platform that includes the Green New Deal, race-based reparations, Medicare for all, “soak the rich” Tax hikes, and free pre-school and college. Such programs would bring a vast expansion of the welfare state, strangling growth and swelling budget deficits.

Even worse, Democrats seek permanent rule by discarding the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, and destroying conservative media with some version of the discredited “fairness doctrine.” They also seek instant statehood for Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico—guaranteeing four new Democratic Senators. If Democrats sweep both White House and Senate next year, America could be altered beyond recognition – perhaps beyond recovery.

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Good news for pre-born babies in last weekend’s box office headlines: To the shock of many in Hollywood, the movie Unplanned opened by making $6.1 million. Unplanned features the story of former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson who defected from the organization and became a pro-life activist.

Now I’m no Hollywood expert, but I was not surprised by how well the movie performed. People are growing frustrated with out of touch politicians who have overreached by allowing abortion rights right up until birth, and even after being born. Yes, that’s infanticide.

To show your support for life, join Focus on the Family in Times Square for “Alive from New York” on May 4th. We’re going to show live 4D ultrasounds. After seeing these images no one should question whether life inside the womb is a human being. Americans are beginning to see life more clearly, and maybe even Hollywood.

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Roger Kimball was quoted recently in Imprimis Magazine, making a pithy observation on the state of higher education: “The more expensive education becomes the more it seems to lead, not to broader understanding, but to narrower horizons.”

Kimball marveled at the removal of a picture of Shakespeare from University of Pennsylvania’s English Department in favor of a photo of Audre Lorde—a black feminist writer. The Department Chairman gushed over the students’ courage to replace it: “they were committed to a more inclusive mission,” he said for the department.

But the rest of us might ask: “OK, but how long will the replacement photo be tolerated?” This trend towards erasing history is not slowing down.

What’s the next step? Bans on Broadway revivals of Neal Simon or Arthur Miller? Persecution of bookstores for selling non-PC books?

Defenders of our common history’s heroes and benefactors should speak out now. Your local libraries and museums may be the next target.

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A new study reveals a correlation between the social media engagement of teens and loneliness.

The headline in USA Today: “Teens aren't socializing in the real world. And that's making them super lonely.”

The story tells us that research into 8.2 million adolescents found that the percentage of high school seniors who said they often feel lonely has increased from 26 percent in 2012 to 39 percent in 2017.

So: In just five years we’ve seen more than a double-digit increase in high school seniors who often feel lonely in the digital age.

If this is true of seniors in high school, what must it say about their younger siblings, their cousins and their friends? There must be an even greater vulnerability as this report makes clear.

Perhaps the term “social media” has been misleading all along … and maybe the social media revolution was never merely a technological revolution, but also a moral revolution. That’s a fact we dare not miss.

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