I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard this over a store’s loud speaker = “Clean-up on aisle three.” And then you see a store employee rushing over with cleaning gear in hand. I have to wonder how often these days we’re thinking, “Clean-up in Washington D.C.?” Or “Clean-up in Sacramento.” If you aren’t thinking it, maybe you should be! Things are a mess these days! Laws are being broken nationwide and the guilty are simply strolling away from the crimes. City DA’s are allowing caught criminals to simply walk, and our judges seem to be a law unto themselves! Challenging times for sure!

   There are credible reasons we have rules & laws. It all reminds me of a difficult time in the Old Testament when the land was in a state of unrest and turmoil. The Israelites had turned away from God and did “what was right in their own eyes.” This phrase is used 7 times in the book of Judges. We’re not talking about people who chose to do wrong – they actually chose to do right. The problem was they chose for themselves what was right — and wrong. They alone made that decision. It turned out to be a recipe for disaster. 

   But doesn’t this sound exactly like the condition we’re in today?! Unrest and confusion abound, all because we have decided what’s right – from the president on down. Never mind the laws – we now individually decide truth. We will do what is right in our own eyes. As a nation we have fallen away from God and we are in distress! What a mess!!

   No person has the right to decide what’s right & wrong. No preacher has that right;  no young person, no government, no court, no gay community, has that right. God only has the right to decide what’s right & wrong. Proverbs 14:12 tells us, “There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

   An insightful writer – Toba Beta – penned this piece: ”If you violate laws of God, you’re a sinner. If you violate laws of men, you’re a criminal. if you violate your own law, you’re pathetic.” Kinda funny but very true!

   In 1992, Dennis Lee Curtis was arrested for armed robbery in South Dakota. Cutis though, apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wallet, police found a sheet of paper on which he had written rules for himself – guidelines for his robberies:

~ I will not kill anyone unless I have to.

~ I will take cash and food stamps – no checks.

~ I will rob only at night.

~ I will not rob mini-marts or 7 Eleven stores.

~ If chased by a vehicle, I will not put the lives of innocent civilians on the line.

  But “doing what was right in his own eyes” proved to be pretty pathetic, and when Curtis stood before the judge he was convicted by a higher set of laws. Score one for 

South Dakota!

   The truth is, without a God-centered standard for right & wrong, without any absolute plumb line, we will always be off track. We are truly limited when we sideline God from our body of laws!

   A photographer was once assigned to take pictures of a large forest fire. He was told a small plane would be waiting for him at the airport to fly him over the blaze. He arrived at the airstrip and sure enough, there was the plane. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, “Okay, let’s go!” The pilot, looking tense, turned the plane into the wind and soon they were high in the air, though flying erratically.

   “Fly over the south side of the fire,” said the photographer, “and make several low-level passes” “Why?” asked the nervous pilot? “Because I’m going take pictures!” yelled the photographer. “I’m a photographer – we take pictures.” The stunned pilot replied “You mean you’re not the flight instructor?” Oops!

   Having a good flight instructor on board would be the ultimate security for any pilot, much the same way God’s laws provide security for our lives! Cecil B. DeMille once made this striking comment: “Man has made 32 million laws sine the Commandments were handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai…but he has never improved on God’s law.” 

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Confronted by a clear and present fascist threat, the staff of The New York Times rose up last week to humiliate and punish quislings in its ranks.

In a now famous op-ed, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton called for federal troops to quell riots and looting, an idea that the Times staff considered worthy of Oswald Mosley or Benito Mussolini.

As the Times was disavowing the Cotton piece and preparing to push out or demote its top opinion staffers for publishing it, columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote a response called “Tom Cotton’s Fascist Op-Ed.”

She acknowledged that the Times published Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani and “a similar case could be made for hearing from Cotton, an enemy of liberal democracy.” But the difference is that Cotton “is calling for what would almost certainly amount to massive violence against his fellow citizens.”

The sophomoric and ahistorical charge that President Donald Trump and his supporters are fascists is now a staple of elite left-of-center opinion. That it has gained such traction is a sign of the ever increasing ideological radicalism of Trump’s opposition and of the ever diminishing ambit for free and open debate — fascists are to be shut down, as the Times staff insisted, not tolerated.

There is no doubt that Trump’s periodic blustery assertions of having total authority are gross, would freak out Republicans if a Democrat made them, and deserve to be condemned. The president loves strength and is drawn to theatrical demonstrations of his own power.

But his critics are unable to distinguish between wild statements at press briefings or in cruel tweets on the one hand and establishing a one-party state or invading France on the other.

Law and order, a favorite Trump theme, is not fascism.

Consider Cotton’s op-ed. The senator called for federal troops to assist in subduing rioters and stipulated that “a majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.” If this is fascism, any effort to stop people burning down buildings now has to be considered dangerous.

Trump’s Rose Garden speech calling for an end to the disorder and for using federal troops if necessary got a similar reaction.

“The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said.

The New Republic warned of “an authoritarian gangster state.”

Trump, like Cotton, distinguished between peaceful protestors and rioters, and surely one purpose of his tough talk on federal troops was to prod governors and mayors to get a better handle on the situation on their own.

Much has been made of protestors being pushed back from Lafayette Park before Trump walked over to St. John’s Church, but Attorney General Bill Barr has explained this was an effort to expand the perimeter around the park, where there had been mayhem and fires the night before.

Kristallnacht it was not.

No one has talked about crushing peaceful protests. No one has urged the stifling of dissent (no one, that is, outside of The New York Times and other “woke” circles). No one has talked of suspending the election. In fact, to this point, Trump has been faulted for wanting an overly normal election, with a traditional convention and standard in-person voting.

In a long piece on Trump “collaborators” in The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum noted how “references to Vichy France, East Germany, fascists, and Communists may seem over-the-top, even ludicrous. But dig a little deeper, and the analogy makes sense.”

No it doesn’t. It only speaks of the lack of seriousness of those who insist on making it.

Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry.

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