A Vote Against Truth
[Originally published May 28, 2021]
Tales from Time Traveling Republicans:
-“On the occasion of President Lincoln’s assassination, Senate Republicans do not believe the additional extraneous commission that leaders want would uncover crucial new facts or promote healing. The fact that several members of a conspiracy to overthrow the United States government have been arrested is not enough to justify the time and energy that will be required to further investigate the incident. Better to let the events of April 15, 1865, find their own place in history, which we are confident will be but a hiccup in our country’s overall story.”
-“The event in Dallas, Texas, which we all saw on the Zapruder film, shook our nation, but what we all saw with our own eyes is not really what happened. President Johnson claims that he only wants to uncover the truth behind the Kennedy assassination, but frankly, I do not believe it is even designed to do that. It is instead designed to embarrass Republicans as we go into the 1964 election cycle.”
-“Eleven Senators missed the vote to investigate the shooting of Ronald Reagan due to scheduling conflicts. ‘It is unfortunate that John Hinckley Jr. felt the need to take this drastic action and that Jim Brady was injured, but I had this event scheduled weeks ago and I could not miss it on account of this vote,’ said one of the absent senators.”
-“Thirty-Five Republicans voted against the creation of the 9-11 Commission fearing that it would be used against them politically. They expressed concern that, since the events of that day occurred while a member of their own political party was in the White House, a drawn-out bi-partisan commission would mean that the attack would still be in the news come the mid-term elections and could harm their efforts at the ballot box.”
These sound ridiculous, right? However, within each of these examples are actual quotations from today’s vote on the January 6th Commission.
Why should we be surprised by today’s vote by Republicans? Of course, they didn’t want to investigate January 6th. Why would they? A group of treasonous Congressmen and Senators tried to overturn the election by voting not to certify the Electoral College’s vote when a treasonous crowd showed up to help.
If the Republicans voted for a January 6th Commission, it would be like a football coach putting on a ref’s uniform and calling a foul on their own team. They won’t vote to investigate it, because they are on the same team as the rioters.
It wasn’t always this way. Richard Nixon resigned because, on August 7, 1974, Sen. Barry Goldwater, House Minority Leader John Rhodes, and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott went to the White House and told their fellow Republican that there were enough votes to impeach, convict, and remove him from office. The truth about the events surrounding Watergate held more sway than party loyalty. Who could imagine that we could pine for the halcyon days of the Nixon years?
The vote today should not have been a difficult one. The first two reasons that the Founding Fathers gave for ordaining and establishing the Constitution were to “establish Justice” and to “insure domestic Tranquility.” Incidentally, those were the very two things that the insurrectionists tried to destroy on January 6th. Both those within the Capitol voting against certification and those outside rioting.
Even though the Republican Party claims to be the voice of the moral majority, it shouldn’t be surprising that these Republicans have forgotten Paul’s warning in Ephesians to “no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).
They have chosen to follow a golden calf who claims to be one of the righteous despite not being able to say what his favorite verse of the Bible is, nor his preferred book of the Bible, nor even if he preferred the Old or New Testaments of the Bible.
Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 4:18, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” Seems pretty spot on for the current state of things in the Grand Old Party.
The vote by Republicans against the formation of a January 6th Commission goes beyond the scope of the political; this is a vote against the very tenants of truth upon which this country was founded.
We were once a shining city on a hill, but men and women with spades of deceit and shovels of lies have dug out the foundation of our republic while they point the finger at others for sending us careening into the bottom of a ravine.