I SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH, FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW
by David Sisler
Either Michael Newdow is a liar, or we’ve been Obi-waned.
Return with me now to a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago.
In Star Wars, Episode 4, "A New Hope," Obi Wan Kenobi tells young Luke Skywalker that the evil Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Luke’s father.
In Star Wars, Episode 5, “The Empire Strikes Back,” Darth tells Luke that he, the Dark Lord of the Sith, is Luke’s father.
In Episode 6, “The Return of the Jedi,” Luke Skywalker confronts the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi about his male parentage and who killed whom. Obi Wan says, “Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker, and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true. From a certain point of view.”
So, to be Obi-waned (as coined and defined by yours truly) is to be told the truth from a certain point of view. It may not be the truth at all, but that doesn’t really matter. As a society, we are becoming like the monkeys in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book who explain, “We all say so, so it must be true.”
Michael Newdow wants the world to believe that he is striking down the Pledge of Allegiance to protect his precious second grade daughter who is oppressed by being forced to say, “Under God.”
Obi Wan’s truth in this saga is: (a) Michael Newdow has a second grade daughter; (b) Michael Newdow is trying to get the Pledge of Allegiance un-deified.
Far from being “injured” by being forced to say the Pledge, Michael Newdow’s daughter says it voluntarily, along with her classmates. This fact was reported first by Conservative Press International, a newsite run by homeschoolers. It was reported nationally by Fox News (which forced Newdow to admit his lie), but has been ignored by virtually every other news outlet. Indeed, for the liberal media to report it, would be to admit that the decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was based on a lie. Or the truth, from a certain point of view.
The 8-year-old girl and her mother, Sandra Banning, are members of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, and both identify themselves as Christians. And according to published reports, both asked Newdow not to file the suit.
Newdow says his daughter was “offended” by the pledge. Her pastor, Chuck Smith, says that claim is “Totally false. She loves the Lord.”
Bill O’Reilly interviewed Newdow for Fox News.
“I told him that he was violating my rights by trying to rewrite the history of my country,” O’Reilly said. “I told him that his hatred of religion was fine with me, but that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and the Founders framed the Constitution around God-given rights.”
Newdow replied with the typical (and false) anti-God rhetoric that “the Founders did not want any trace of God in the public discourse.”
As Mr. O’Reilly pointed out, there are many references to God in the founding documents of our nation: “The author of the Constitution, James Madison, joined with the first Congress to pass a law paying chaplains for the House and the Senate with public monies. So not only did the boys want a guy to lead them in prayer – they wanted guys like Newdow to pay for it.”
O’Reilly concludes, “These people [Michael Newdow and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals] are not looking out for their country, they are trying to impose a narrow set of secular standards on a nation that was founded on principles that are much greater.”
And they are trying to impose the Obi Wan Kenobi version – truth from a certain point of view. Which is no truth at all.
One man, telling a lie, presented his perjured story, and the 9th Circuit believed it, evidently without question. The outrage to their original decision was immediate and almost universal, but now it has been pushed to the back pages and forgotten (indeed, the truth is largely ignored).
We’ve seen what one man armed with a lie can do. What about all of the rest of us armed with the truth? What can we do?
When the anti-God crowd made their move, we responded with one loud shout, and then sat back on our hands. We don’t even demand that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth be told. A certain point of view seems to be very comfortable. If we continue in that fashion, the liars will win. And that is a point of view which we will long regret.
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Copyright 2002 by David Sisler. All Rights Reserved.
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