Progressives insist that they are the ambassadors of tolerance and compassion and have done so now for decades. They clamor for their endless list of causes behind the garish guise of these two high virtues and insist they stand on the moral high ground in all social issues.
Much to the chagrin of progressives, however, the roots of tolerance and compassion are decidedly religious in origin and remain so. They actually form the Golden Rule. And while the Golden Rule gets bandied about too often to count these days, many often forget that the maxim is inherently religious. That is, it simply would not exist were it not for religion.
After all, it’s a foundational maxim for all the major religious traditions of the world. Even the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule">Wikipedia entry</a> states as much as does the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a>:
<blockquote>All known world religions address the nature of good and evil and commend ways of achieving human well-being…there is a substantial overlap between many of these conceptions of the good as witnessed by the commending of the Golden Rule.</blockquote>
Here’s a key proviso in relation to the Golden Rule though. It only makes sense in a decidedly religious context. Religious faith not only provides a foundation for the Golden Rule but also guideposts. A sense of wholesome direction and discipline are established.
Bereft of the necessary religious foundations, tolerance and compassion mutate into vacuous pity and a complete disregard for boundaries. Almost anything is allowed. We are reduced to bestial impulses. Wanton hedonism emerges alongside blinding narcissism under very deviant definitions of tolerance and compassion.
Tolerance, in particular, warps into “anything goes and you’re not allowed to criticize it.” This is evident among progressives now more than ever and, sadly, in America at large today.
Unlike religious faith, when one finally decides to peer behind the curtain of progressive claims to such virtues, one finds that no moral foundation whatsoever exists. Their ideas are rooted in nihilism and narcissism. At best, they draw from comic books, films and television shows. These have formed a hopelessly insular and circular narrative for them ad nauseam.
For example, the Star Wars universe has become a moral guidepost for many progressives. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-life-lessons-i-learned-_b_8716432">I’m not kidding</a>. Last I checked though, George Lucas is not some grand harbinger of wisdom.
In fact, the very first Star Wars trilogy alongside pretty much the entire genre of fantasy draws from J.R.R. Tolkien and his seminal classic, The Lord of The Rings. Here’s a fun fact for progressives: Tolkien was very much <a href="https://denvercatholic.org/the-catholic-origins-of-the-lord-of-the-rings-and-other-truths-about-j-r-r-tolkien/">a devout Catholic</a> and says as much in his own words regarding his work:
<blockquote>The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.</blockquote>
Tolerance and compassion remain fundamentally religious values. Sadly, progressives have not only abandoned religious wisdom – wisdom that has remained for centuries upon centuries &#8211; they generally malign the very notion of religious faith unless it involves some silly New Age dreck from the likes of Ram Dass, Marianne Williamson, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh">Osho and his fleet of Rolls Royces</a>. It’s no wonder that such high virtues have devolved into self-serving progressive virtue-signaling.

Group Prayer

KHAN: Tolerance And Compassion Are Inherently Religious Values, Not Progressive Ones

Religion

For much of the 19th century, the British government bombarded China with illicit shipments of opium. In what became known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars">Opium Wars</a>, this passive sort of chemical warfare led to a generation of addicts and put an effective stranglehold on China’s economy at the time.
Now it seems China is resorting to similar tactics here in the U.S. with the synthetic drug Fentanyl — a drug 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. In a piece entitled “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/china-poisoning-america-fentanyl">China is Poisoning America with Fentanyl</a>,” The Heritage Foundation reports that fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths here in the U.S. Overdoses claimed almost 100,000 lives in 2017 and 2018 and there seems to be no end in sight as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">the opioid epidemic</a> expands beyond measure. For comparison, those numbers rival the peak of the AIDS crisis in 1995 according to the <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10091.html">Rand Corporation</a>.
Incredibly cheap to manufacture, the cost ratio of Fentanyl is staggering. An investment of a few thousand dollars can easily yield millions of dollars. It’s no wonder the Mexican Cartels have turned to Fentanyl according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/07/what-are-mexican-drug-cartels-fighting-over-chance-sell-fentanyl-here/">The Washington Post</a>:
<blockquote>[M]uch of the current supply of fentanyl pushing the broader opioid crisis to unprecedented heights is being smuggled into the country by the Sinaloa cartel and its rivals in Mexico…Black-market fentanyl and other synthetic opioids smuggled in from Mexico and China have become the <a href="https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/DIR-032-18%202018%20NDTA%20final%20low%20resolution.pdf">fastest-growing and most lethal drug</a> in America, far surpassing heroin and the prescription narcotics that often serve as gateway drugs.</blockquote>
A key point though is that the majority of fentanyl being produced originates in China. Endless factories abound with little to no oversight from the Chinese government. As a result, the drug is allowed to proliferate with little to no resistance. The <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-opioid-epidemic">Council on Foreign Relations</a> reports that:
<blockquote>Most fentanyl coming to the United States is produced in China, U.S. officials say, and commonly <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-drug-war">transited through Mexico</a>. Chinese authorities “have struggled to adequately regulate thousands of chemical and pharmaceutical facilities operating legally and illegally in the country,” says a 2017 <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/USCC%20Staff%20Report_Fentanyl-China%E2%80%99s%20Deadly%20Export%20to%20the%20United%20States020117.pdf">report</a> [PDF] issued by a congressionally mandated commission.</blockquote>
Whether or not this utter lack of regulations and oversight on the part of the Chinese government is a calculated ploy needs to be seriously considered now. Considering the stranglehold the Chinese government has on its population, it’s hard to imagine that the authoritarian regime has a sudden, profound inability to control the production of such a nefarious substance like fentanyl.
Certainly, the impact the opioid epidemic has had on us here in the U.S. has reached crisis levels. Like the aforementioned Opium Wars of the 19th century, the opioid epidemic here in the U.S. has had a palpable effect on our economy as well. The Council on Foreign Relations also reports that:
<blockquote>Opioids have also begun to take a toll on the economy. Testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2017, Janet Yellen, then chair of the Federal Reserve, linked the opioid epidemic to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/opioid-use-explains-20-of-drop-in-american-men-from-labor-force?ex_cid=SigDig">declining labor-force participation</a> among “prime-age workers.” Princeton University economist Alan Krueger wrote that it could account for 20 percent of the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/09/07/how-the-opioid-epidemic-has-affected-the-u-s-labor-force-county-by-county/">decline in participation</a> among men and 25 percent among women from 1999 to 2015.</blockquote>
Though our economy is hopelessly entangled with China for the foreseeable future, it’s high time we consider taking a meaningful stand against that regime’s marauding influence over us, especially as it pertains to illicit drugs like fentanyl. As a nation, we are increasingly at the mercy of the pernicious toll of addiction and it seems that the Chinese government is all too willing to contribute to this drug-fueled downward spiral.

Fentanyl

KHAN: China, Fentanyl, And The New Opium War

China

Drugs

It seems the same dark impulses that are driving an alarming number of <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a9202/britain-male-suicide-crisis/">men to kill themselves</a> may very well be the same impulses driving many of them to turn on others in hatred and violence.
Just a cursory investigation into some of the many men who have committed or encouraged egregious acts of violence suggests a perilous search for acceptance, some desperate search for meaning among the increasing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-why-progressives-cant-save-the-world">existential emptiness</a> that has been hollowing out our great country over the last forty years.
Take one of these murderous extremists recently profiled in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/05/23/a-neo-nazi-converted-to-islam-and-killed-2-roommates-for-disrespecting-his-faith-police-say/?utm_term=.8d78efa17574">Washington Post</a> in 2017. The directionless 18-year-old, who fancied himself a neo-Nazi alongside his two roommates, eventually appeared to gravitate toward Islamic extremism in 2017, suddenly showing support for the likes of ISIS. He would go on to murder his two roommates for harboring the very same beliefs he once had:
<blockquote>“According to records, [the extremist] told officers that ‘all of them had been friends with a common neo-Nazi belief’ until [he] converted to Islam…It is unclear if and when [he] actually converted to Islam, was an observant Muslim or ever attended a mosque. ‘Allah Mohammad,’ which [he] exclaimed to police as he was being led to the patrol car, is not a Muslim phrase.”</blockquote>
To argue that the young man was simply deranged is patently unfair and dismissive of the complexities at hand. Desperation and an utter lack of direction are the more likely culprits. He played a hopelessly superficial game of hopscotch with beliefs and ideologies that lead to a tragic and senseless act of violence. He was, to put it simply, lost.
And there are plenty of men like the neo-Nazi-turned-ISIS fan out there. The notorious founder of the neo-Nazi site, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Stormer">The Daily Stormer</a>, had a similar hapless and haphazard search for some semblance of meaning. He spent his formative years as an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/the-making-of-an-american-nazi/544119/">anti-racist vegan</a>. With little to no guidance outside of impulse and whim, it led him to a savage kind of hatred as well.
To be sure, the narrative that somehow the desperate, chaotic violence that litters our newsfeeds is the result of some innate, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-psychologists-say-masculinity-harmful-matt-walsh">toxic masculinity</a> is as misleading as it is false. Rather, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-faith-in-a-dark-time">dark, virulent nihilism</a> has emerged amid the war on civility, virtue, and faith as fundamentally objective values. Our collective moral compass as a society is broken and it’s often evidenced by these <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting">mindless, terrible acts of violence</a>.
We have traded fortitude and sacrifice — hallmarks of religious faith, particularly among men — for the solipsism of postmodernity and its consequent, seductive whispers of violence and suicide. It’s even reflected in the absurd, godless philosophies of the likes of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/#SuiResAbs">Albert Camus</a> that are more prevalent today than ever:
<blockquote>“There is only one really serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy.”</blockquote>
The desire to turn on oneself seems to be often intimately related to the desire to turn on others. Both are borne from a corrosive form of self-hatred compelled by an overwhelming need to forfeit life itself. That hatred is often extended to the world and to others. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre">Jean-Paul Sartre</a>, a compatriot of Camus in the philosophy of bleak, godless existentialism, famously quipped in his play, No Exit:
<blockquote>“Hell is other people.”</blockquote>
The landscape now teems with discarded, listless men fueled by nihilistic rage and woe. So many are as disconnected and directionless as they are disconsolate. Most will go about their lives in &#8220;quiet desperation.&#8221; Some will not. Before we condemn them out of hand though, we must first consider the existential roots of this maddening epidemic.

Despair

KHAN: A Thin Line Separates Suicide From Violence Among Men Today

Suicide

Violence

As the Left insists on forcing its sociopolitical ideas down everybody’s throats through various mediums including film, television, and art, James Baldwin’s essay, <a href="http://faculty.gordonstate.edu/lsanders-senu/Everybody's%20Protest%20Novel%20by%20James%20Baldwin.pdf">Everybody’s Protest Novel</a>, is as relevant today as ever.
Penned in 1955, Baldwin’s essay takes aim at the famous protest novel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son">Native Son</a>, written by his friend and former mentor, Richard Wright. Suffused with communist ideals, most of Native Son amounts to didactic slop, as Baldwin rightly points out.
Wright’s zeal to infest his work with overt political tropes effectively ruins the novel. Characters lack dimension and the plot stumbles toward the absurd. Most importantly, it’s bereft of any real sense of humanity. The novel reads more like a political pamphlet or a fictional exercise in communism than a piece of genuine literature.
Baldwin elaborates:
<blockquote>“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization which is real and cannot be transcended.” </blockquote>
Baldwin’s reductive, limiting notion of categorization is what the Left forcefully asserts on all of us these days. The decidedly superficial aspects of ourselves are what must inherently define us now according to the Left — be it our skin color, ethnicity, or sexual preference. We are stripped of the deeper, more essential qualities of our collective humanity.
Worse, these categories exist in a nebulous hierarchy. Only the most fringe are crowned to preside over the rest of us as gatekeepers of what is allowable, particularly in the arts. The evidence is increasingly clear.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glaad-we-want-20-of-series-regular-characters-to-be-lgbtq-by-2025">GLAAD demands that 20 percent</a> of series regulars on shows be from the LGBTQ community by 2025. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test">The Bechdel test</a>is now a common feminist metric to coerce filmmakers and novelists into artificially representing women in their works. The progressive pull of these groups in Hollywood and elsewhere is staggering in scope and continually evidenced by the films, shows, and novels being thrown at us ad nauseam.
Certainly, if any artist attempts to stray from these measures the specter of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-no-leftists-critics-of-cancel-culture-dont-hate-democracy">Cancel Culture</a> looms over them. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dave-chappelles-rotten-tomato-standup-reviews-are-amanda-prestigiacomo">Rotten Tomatoes</a> certainly tried to undermine Dave Chapelle’s recent comedy special, Sticks and Stones, by only allowing for negative reviews from supposed critics.
Baldwin’s essay foreshadows the nefarious impact such sociopolitical strictures like virtue signaling and Cancel Culture have not only on artistry but on truth and the very notion of freedom itself.
<blockquote>“Let us say, then, that truth…is meant to imply a devotion to the human being, his freedom and fulfillment; freedom which cannot be legislated…This is the prime concern, the frame of reference; it is not to be confused with…devotion to a Cause…Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.” </blockquote>
Of course, given the nature of higher education these days, it’s doubtful many are even aware of Baldwin’s eloquent and prescient essay. Over the last thirty years, pedagogy has given way to progressive demagoguery on college campuses all across America. Healthy critical thinking is at a premium in academia and beyond.
I’d be remiss though if I didn’t note some information about Baldwin himself. Not only was he a great, complex American writer, he was black. And gay. How about them apples, progressives?

Dave Chappelle

Cancel Culture&#8217;s Failure: James Baldwin’s Famous Essay Exposes The Left&#8217;s Flawed Logic

Political Correctness

&#8220;Hope springs eternal in the human breast,&#8221; Alexander Pope famously stated in his poem <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epistle-i">An Essay on Man</a>. From a religious vantage point, that means it’s inherent to existence and beyond, not something that manifests itself by attending rallies, protests, or voting some perceived savior into office. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYNVH0U3cs">Progressives seem to think otherwise</a> and often in mind-numbing fashion.
From climate change to human rights, progressives insist that it rests upon their shoulders to affect some sort of cosmic change in the world. Their view of existence is rooted in a spiritual fallacy of sorts. For them, all of existence is self-contained and only exists on some fatiguing <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socialism/#SociTranDimeDIII">historical and horizontal line</a> rather than the decidedly vertical aspirations that only faith can offer. There is little to no sense of God or the afterlife. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology">Eschatological</a> considerations are cast aside. Certainly, if God is even considered, His omnipotence and omniscience are rendered impotent.
As a result, progressives insist that civilization can only move forward through the efforts of human volition alone. It’s no wonder things only become worse with their dogged insistence.
In 1976, renowned religious scholar Huston Smith addressed the terrible, mythical stature this flawed notion of progress had achieved during the 20th century in his work Forgotten Truth. Smith writes:
<blockquote>“The [20th] century in which politicians have preyed on hope unprecedentedly, promising ‘The Century of the Common Man,’ ‘The War to End All Wars,’ ‘The War To Make the World Safe for Democracy,’ ‘The Four Freedoms,’ ‘The Great Society’ – this century of maniacally inflated expectations has seen utopian writing come to a dead stop…Even Bergsen, who moved Darwin into philosophy, came at the end to view that man was ‘being crushed by the immense progress’ he has made.” </blockquote>
Now, more than forty years later, amid an onslaught of postmodernity and even more supposed progress — in medicine, technology and, most importantly, values — a silent pandemic of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-faith-in-a-dark-time">despair festers and grows</a> all around us, particularly here in America, the bastion of all things seemingly progressive.
What progressives seek verges on fantasy and delusion. Their myopic, reductive view of the world bereft of any meaningful notion of God forces them to act as though omnipotence is a human possibility with just the right amount of outcry and activism. Inevitably, a terrible cynicism forms and festers as their efforts prove hopeless in effecting the radical change they convince themselves is possible.
To be sure, faith in God does not render us dogmatic or fatalistic. It can liberate us from the bonds of tragedy and despair. We do not labor like some histrionic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology)">Atlas</a> with the weight of the world upon our shoulders, as is the case with so many progressives. Instead, faith and God embolden us toward humble heroism, sacrifice, and composure.
The lines that follow Pope’s famous words in his immortal poem are worth quoting in full for those of us that do our best to recognize that, ultimately, the world will always reside in God’s benevolence and might:
<blockquote>“Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin&#8217;d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”</blockquote>

Atlas

KHAN: Why Progressives Can’t Save The World

Progressivism

It was more than a year ago that NBA superstar LeBron James bristled at the notion that he ought to just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lebron-james-responds-laura-ingraham-i-mean-too-emily-zanotti">&#8220;shut up and dribble&#8221;</a> rather than express his sociopolitical views.
James immediately <a href="https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/965448138902286336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E965448138902286336&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbssports.com%2Fnba%2Fnews%2Flebron-responds-to-news-pundit-i-will-not-shut-up-and-dribble-i-owe-it-to-the-youth%2F">fired back</a> at the comment by Fox News host Laura Ingraham after the 2018 NBA All-Star Game:
&#8220;I will not shut up and dribble. I owe it to my peers. I owe it to my fans. I owe it to the youth. I owe it … to everybody that has laid the path for me to get to this point.”
In what now resounds with irony, <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lebron-responds-to-news-pundit-i-will-not-shut-up-and-dribble-i-owe-it-to-the-youth/">CBS Sports</a> stated in 2018:
“Lebron James has never shied away from sensitive issues. He&#8217;s known for being an activist and uses his platform as an athlete to share his thoughts on the world.”
James has now decided to pathetically <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lebron-bows-to-communist-china-pro-hong-kong-advocates-not-educated-negative-things-come-with-free-speech">bend the knee</a> to China and all the monstrous <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-as-woke-nba-bows-to-china-we-learn-more-about-the-horrific-acts-of-the-communist-regime">atrocities</a> its government continues commit.
In response to Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey’s now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/backfire-nba-houston-rockets-cower-to-communist-china-get-blasted-online">famous tweet</a> expressing solidarity with the Hong Kong protests against China’s Communist regime, James offered the following <a href="https://twitter.com/BenGolliver?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1183917743680020480&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fftw.usatoday.com%2F2019%2F10%2Flakers-lebron-james-crushed-for-take-on-daryl-morey-usa-china-situation">mind-numbing response</a> on Monday:
<blockquote>We all talk about this freedom of speech, yes, we all do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself. I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke. And so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.</blockquote>
The level of ignorance on James’ part is staggering. It’s abundantly clear that he is absolutely clueless, if not altogether craven. Here is the NBA’s most recognizable player as well as one of the greatest to ever play the game, actively shilling for the Chinese government. This is the very same player once dubbed by the <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/lebron-james-to-take-floor-for-nba-all-star-game-as-the-most-powerful-voice-in-his-profession/">Undefeated</a> as “the most powerful voice in his profession.”
Writing for <a href="https://theathletic.com/1281993/2019/10/14/charania-inside-what-went-on-among-nets-and-lakers-players-on-the-ground-in-china-amid-the-nba-china-conflict/">The Athletic</a>, Shams Charania reported that last week James lead a players-only discussion on the relationship between the NBA and China. According to Charania, James did not want players to speak out on the horrific injustices being committed by the Chinese government because they felt confused or uncomfortable about the subject. Of course, these very same players have no problem whatsoever letting loose when it comes to their criticisms of America.
More importantly, the issue is not at all some vexing deliberation over geopolitics from the likes of James and the NBA. The issue is money and sponsorships. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nike-pulls-american-flag-sneaker-after-complaint-emily-zanotti">Nike</a> is intimately connected to China and James is easily the shoe company’s biggest star. The NBA also has billions of dollars tied to China, according to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/nba-china-crisis-threatens-billions-of-dollars-decades-of-work">Bloomberg</a>.
It seems that, more than anything else, many, if not most, of the players in the supposedly &#8220;woke&#8221; league have gone decidedly corporate. Countless players have millions of dollars tied up in deals and sponsorships directly related to China. In 2017, the <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/klay-thompson-signs-80m-deal-with-anta-aims-to-be-the-m-j-of-chinese-shoe-brand/">Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson</a> signed an $80 million deal with Chinese shoe company, Anta.
Perhaps, James Harden’s rather pathetic quip last week to <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/china-rounds-rockets-gms-hong-kong-tweet-031203458--nba.html">Agence France-Presse</a> summarizes the extent to just how low the NBA and its players have stooped. The NBA’s 2018 MVP and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zpmigCh0Aw">notorious traveler</a> brazenly stated, like only a good comrade could: “We apologize. We love China.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-democracy-hong-kong-protesters-unload-on-lebron-brainwashed-or-bought">Pro-Democracy Hong Kong Protesters Unload On LeBron: ‘Brainwashed’ Or ‘Bought’?</a>

LeBron James

KHAN: When It Comes To China, LeBron Has Decided To &#8216;Shut Up And Dribble&#8217;

Communism

Free Speech

Laura Ingraham

Recently, The Atlantic Monthly published <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/?fbclid=IwAR2jRgvcsnILYqgaMph5gxz9K-5hNu4mCcRJ9vLrXHVFzM1cD3vhD0iP5oc">an article</a> entitled “A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked.” The article details the latest discoveries in neuroscience regarding the age-old debate between <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#DoWeHaveFreeWill">free will and determinism</a>. According to the piece, the available science now suggests that we may, in fact, have free will contrary to the biological determinism impressed upon us by the scientific community for almost a century. And so the debate rages on for yet another millennia, if not till kingdom come.
More importantly, the article illustrates a vital point for those of us who maintain faith as a central aspect of our lives. It’s imperative as people of faith that we do not attempt to corroborate our beliefs with scientific facts or endeavors. Not only is it a fool’s errand, it’s also a detriment to faith itself.
While it may seem intriguing or even somewhat reasonable to buttress our religious beliefs with scientific evidence, it very much runs the risk of delegitimizing the very beliefs we are attempting to prove as empirically true. Nevermind that it can be a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-red-seas-parting-180953553/">theological wild goose chase</a>, scientific theories are disproven all the time. If we seek scientific corroboration for our deeply held religious beliefs those very beliefs run the risk of being disproven as well.
<blockquote>“But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – C.S. Lewis</blockquote>
An inherent aspect of science is that it remains in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_theories_in_science">constant state of flux</a> wherein in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity">new discoveries</a> supplant long-held theories in an instant. For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craniometry">craniometry</a> was considered a perfectly valid method to scientifically measure human intelligence in the nineteenth century. We know now that it’s bunk and the methods and paradigms employed to reach such conclusions were specious at best.
Regardless, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that some piece of scripture in the Abrahamic traditions seemingly supported the antiquated idea that head size was indicative of intelligence. The instant the scientific theory is rendered obsolete, the scripture is as well. One is, essentially, building exegetical constructs on quicksand.
That doesn’t mean that science cannot provide us with a continued sense of wonderment toward all that God has created nor does it mean that we dismiss scientific truths for the sake of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46432/cases-measles-us-climbs-highest-level-25-years-ashe-schow">rote, blind dogma</a>. Not at all. What it does entail is that religious truths cannot reside in the lower, earthly strata of the scientific worldview. Simply put, religious truths must supersede them.
<blockquote>“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” – Hamlet, William Shakespeare</blockquote>
It also has to be vehemently stated that though we may not find tenable support in science for our religious beliefs, this does not mean, in any way, that we abandon our critical faculties when studying our respective traditions. Faith must be an active pursuit if it’s to maintain its necessary vitality and strength and not be reduced to some dust-covered ornament on a shelf. God gave us both a head and a heart for a reason.
That said, we need to also consider just how hopelessly dogmatic the scientific community continues to be as the defining paradigm for well over a century. In Why Religion Matters, renowned religious scholar Huston Smith drives home this point compellingly:
<blockquote>Among scientists themselves, debates over Darwin rage furiously, fueled by comments such as Fred Hoyle&#8217;s now-famous assertion that the chance of natural selection&#8217;s producing even an enzyme is on order of a tornado&#8217;s roaring through a junkyard and coming up with a Boeing 747. But when religion enters the picture, scientists close ranks in supporting Darwinism&#8230;Michael Ruse of the University of Guelph — a self-confessed bulldog for Darwinism — puts this colonization of theology by biology when he charges his fellow Darwinists with behaving as if Darwinism were a religion. (Why Religion Matters, p. 77)</blockquote>
While religious traditions continue to be maligned as antiquated and dogmatic pursuits, particularly by younger generations, they are completely unaware of just how dogmatically suspect many of their <a href="https://youtu.be/GlZtEjtlirc?t=203">own current conclusions</a> can be.
Smith continues:
<blockquote>Rustum Roy, a materials scientist at Pennsylvania State, goes further. Half seriously, he has threatened to sue the National Science Foundation for violating the separation of church and state in funding branches of science that turned themselves into religions&#8230;we have the curious spectacle of [Darwinism] colonizing not only theology but biology as well. (Why Religion Matters, p. 77)</blockquote>
While it may be intriguing to find parallels between our religious beliefs and all that science offers and continues to discover, it’s an unwise pursuit outside of some mild curiosity. Science is limited and reductive in scope and simply cannot grasp the awe, grandeur, and transcendence faith and God encompass beyond measure.

candle flame isolated on black

KHAN: Why Seeking Scientific Proof For Religious Realities Is A Fool’s Errand

Science

According to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/inside-chinese-camps-thought-detain-million-muslim-uighurs-n1062321">NBC News</a>, an estimated 10% of the Uighur minority population is being held captive in reeducation camps by the Chinese government. These camps are beginning to echo the atrocities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong">Mao Zedong’s</a> treacherous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward">Great Leap Forward</a> from 1958 to 1962. The draconian measures now being introduced rival the worst dystopian fantasies of our time – yet the NBA, which bills itself as the most progressive and tolerant of the athletic leagues, is bowing to the oppressive communist regime.
Amid the millions being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps">detained and subjugated</a> by the Chinese government, in mainly the Xinjiang province, many women are now reportedly being <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-women-abortions-sexual-abuse-genocide-a9144721.html">forced to have abortions</a>. Others are reportedly being compelled to yield to intrauterine contraceptive measures.
Countless Chinese women have now come forward with harrowing claims of subjugation and rape alongside forced abortions at the hands of Chinese officials. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has called the treatment of the Uighur minorities at the hands of the Chinese regime &#8220;the stain of the century.&#8221;
Recently, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-women-abortions-sexual-abuse-genocide-a9144721.html">The Independent</a> recounted a particularly horrific incident. Gulzira Mogdyn was placed under house arrest by Chinese officials in the Xinjiang province for having WhatsApp on her phone. She was 10 weeks pregnant at the time. According to Mogdyn, doctors cut her child out from her womb without anesthesia before murdering the infant. Mogdyn told the Independent, “Two humans were lost in this tragedy – my baby and me.”
Among the other alarming allegations are reports that the Chinese government is harvesting organs from its subjugated minorities, including <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/china-religious-ethnic-minorities-organ-harvesting-uighur-muslims-falun-gong-brexit-a9120146.html">Christians and Tibetans</a>. According to the findings presented to the UN Human Rights Council by the China Tribunal, it’s on an industrial scale. The details are particularly harrowing and gruesome as detailed by the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-religious-ethnic-minorities-uighur-muslim-harvest-organs-un-human-rights-a9117911.html">Independent</a>:
<blockquote>Detainees were ‘killed to order&#8230; cut open while still alive for their kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, cornea and skin to be removed and turned into commodities for sale’, the tribunal’s final judgment said.</blockquote>
It’s supremely ironic, even surreal, that the NBA, purportedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-344-national-cowards-association-2">the most “woke” sports league</a>, is running a <a href="https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/">training center in Xinjiang</a>, the epicenter of the major atrocities being committed by the Chinese government.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ted-cruz-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-join-forces-to-criticize-nbas-china-cowardice">Senator Ted Cruz</a>, alongside other members of Congress, has sent a letter to the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, insisting the league stand firm against the Chinese government. The <a href="https://gallagher.house.gov/sites/gallagher.house.gov/files/NBA%20China%20Letter.pdf">letter</a> states, in part:
<blockquote>It is outrageous that the Chinese Communist Party is using its economic power to suppress the speech of Americans inside the United States. It is also outrageous that the NBA has caved to Chinese government demands for contrition.</blockquote>
The letter is also quick to point out Silver’s glaring hypocrisy:
<blockquote>NBA players have a rich history of speaking out on sensitive topics of social justice and human rights inside the United States, and the NBA takes pride in defending their right to do so. Yet while it is easy to defend freedom of speech when it costs you nothing, equivocating when profits are at stake is a betrayal of fundamental American values.</blockquote>
When the NBA alongside companies like Apple, Starbucks, and Nike virtue signal nonsense all while giving the Chinese government full support and tacit approval for their barbarous crimes against humanity, it’s nothing short of being morally repugnant. These organizations&#8217; pathetic claims of progressive virtues alongside their <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nike-pulls-american-flag-sneaker-after-complaint-emily-zanotti">infantile tantrums</a>are in complete shambles now that we are becoming increasingly aware of the horrific atrocities the Chinese government continues to inflict on its people.
&nbsp;

Adam Silver

KHAN: As ‘Woke’ NBA Bows To China, We Learn More About The Horrific Acts Of The Communist Regime

“What’s madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?” – Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time
Few words seem so prescient for this day and age than the line above. Taken from Theodore Roethke’s <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43347/in-a-dark-time">bittersweet poem</a> published in 1963, these words render the frustration and despair that seem to teem all around us with stark eloquence.
The timeless values we once held sacred have been deconstructed into abject oblivion. Worse, those values are now met with mockery and derision if not outright vilified. Even those few who pretend to stand for them in the public sphere seem only to do so for their own pathetic ends.
Madness and despair now seem the orders of the day. Certainly, the numbers bear out and are beyond comprehension. Suicide is the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/world-suicide-prevention-day-men-emotions-childhood-biggest-killer-in-uk-under-45-a7235766.html">leading cause of death</a> for men in the UK. It’s now the <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/numbers">second leading cause of death</a> for Americans between the ages of 10 to 34 as well. <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2018/09/01/loneliness-is-a-serious-public-health-problem">Loneliness</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">addiction</a> are veritable plagues all across our great nation and beyond.
It seems that all we are left with are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/health/antidepressants-withdrawal-prozac-cymbalta.html?module=inline">pills and potions</a> to remedy the dark aches that confound us. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.pdf">antidepressant use has increased by 400%</a> since the 1990s. Amid the opioid epidemic, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html">130 Americans overdose and die</a> each and every day.
That many are also deciding <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-mass-shootings-matt-walsh">to turn on others</a> cannot be a surprise to many of us considering how deep these crises of the spirit have festered for half a century. Again, a dark, insidious despair invades these <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/paz8q7/how-devon-arthurs-went-from-neo-nazi-to-muslim-to-alleged-killer">pathetic souls</a> that preside over whatever tired, fanatical rhetoric they may harbor or spew.
Sadder still, we are all distracted to the point of exhaustion. Our phones, our computers, our social media accounts deaden our senses never mind our critical faculties. A mindless drive toward ephemera blinds us. No wonder despair soon follows our restlessness and fatiguing boredom:
<blockquote>“In all the squalid zoo of vices, one is even uglier and fouler than the rest…I speak of Boredom which with ready tears dreams of hangings as it puffs its pipe.” – Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal</blockquote>
Collectively, there seems an unwillingness outside of hubris and platitudes to address the malignant, spiritual defeat that has affected us over so many decades. Even when not under constant attack, meaningful faith is either treated as an antiquated ornament to be placed on a shelf or presented with such obfuscation, it’s devoid of any real solace or value.
Treating God as some decoration to hang on the periphery of our lives is to build faith on quicksand. And faith and God presented in far too an abstract light provides, at best, only the cold comfort of an equation. Neither offers little by way of guidance or genuine hope in our perilous time of need.
Too often, we no longer even bear witness to the profoundly simple beauty that God Almighty surrounds us with each and every day. Regardless, it is evident as ever in a gentle breeze, a melody, your child’s laughter, the tinge of a sweet memory. Perhaps though, we have plummeted far <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave">deeper into the proverbial cave</a> than Plato could have ever imagined. We must reorient our purpose toward God if we are to find our way out.

Prayer

KHAN: Faith In A Dark Time

While the decidedly progressive notion of uncritically believing all women continues to be pilloried by <a href="https://quillette.com/2018/11/06/how-the-metoo-movement-helped-create-a-script-for-false-accusers/">endless evidence</a>, it remains very much in vogue among the Left. The most recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-latest-allegation-against-brett-kavanaugh-matt-walsh">spurious allegations</a> against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh demonstrate this to a fatiguing degree. Due process has been thrown out of the proverbial window when it comes to accusations of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-moral-musical-chairs-metoo-movement-continues-sharif-khan">sexual misconduct toward men</a> with little hope of change in the foreseeable future, particularly in the increasingly progressive court of public opinion.
What these zealots fail to recognize in their uncritical witch-hunts is just how hard we, as Americans, fought to eradicate such false accusations. For reference, the most telling example in our recent history is that of Emmett Till and Carolyn Bryant.
In 1955, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till">Emmett Till</a> was a mere 14-year-old boy when 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant accused him of sexually assaulting her. A kangaroo court ensued. Till was murdered by a small mob, his body mutilated and dumped in the Tallahatchie River.
Historian Timothy Tyson states that in a 2007 interview Carolyn Bryant admitted to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/how-author-timothy-tyson-found-the-woman-at-the-center-of-the-emmett-till-case">fabricating her accusations</a> against Emmett Till. While historians can debate the details, what simply cannot be denied is that a young teenage boy was denied due process and brutally killed over an accusation.
While public figures often steal the headlines, countless men continue to face outright ruin over false claims of sexual misconduct as well. In 2010, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-11676804">Paul Joseph</a>, an IT consultant from the UK, was accused of rape by his then-girlfriend. Though she was punished with three years in prison for the false allegation, it still destroyed Joseph’s life in the process.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Banks_(American_football)">Brian Banks</a> was once a top football prospect out of high school on his way to attend USC. Instead, a false rape claim forced him to serve six years in prison. He was finally exonerated in 2012, but his dreams of playing pro ball were long dashed upon the rocks.
A <a href="https://torontosun.com/news/world/mean-girls-face-lawsuit-over-false-sex-allegations-against-teen">Canadian teenage boy</a> was falsely accused of sexual assault simply because he was disliked by a group of teenage girls. He was forced out of his job, had to be homeschooled for the remainder of high school, and suffered extensive psychological damage as a result.
<a href="https://coloradosun.com/2019/02/14/moses-el-exonerated-compensation/">Clarence Moses-EL</a> was imprisoned for 28 years because his accuser dreamt he raped her. Though awarded a settlement, no amount of money can give back nearly three decades of his life lost behind bars.
The tragic story of Emmett Till needs to haunt the hashtag of #believewomen. The cruel, regressive irony of the murdered young boy amid the shrill, uncritical demand of progressives results in a suffocating kind of disbelief. Due process, the hallmark of American justice, remains under constant attack as progressives recklessly wield their hashtags with ineptitude and a complete disregard for actual principles. In doing so, they resurrect old ghosts from our past we once thought banished to the halls of history.
More from Sharif Khan:
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-moral-musical-chairs-metoo-movement-continues-sharif-khan">KHAN: The Moral Musical Chairs Of The #MeToo Movement Continues</a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-brief-view-streets-addiction-epidemic-sharif-khan">KHAN: A Brief View From The Streets Of The Addiction Epidemic In California</a>
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Emmett Till&#8217;s Grave

KHAN: The Ghost Of Emmett Till And The Inherent Dangers Of #BelieveWomen

Constitution

Racism

Rape

Sexism

Sexual Assault

Recently, Vox published yet another <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/7/12/20690303/aziz-ansari-sexual-misconduct-accusation-right-now">#MeToo-inspired hit piece</a>. This time, author Anna North aimed her sights at comedian, Aziz Ansari. North writes:
<blockquote>But missing from every single one of Ansari’s public statements…was a direct apology.</blockquote>
North laments that Ansari has yet to publicly apologize for what amounts to an awkward sexual encounter between two consenting adults with absolutely no physical coercion at play.
Instead, the narrative continues to be framed as sexual misconduct on the part of Ansari. Why? Because the woman involved in the intimate shenanigans with Ansari simply regrets her own actions. The woman in question, writing under the pseudonym Grace, <a href="https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355">claimed Ansari</a> failed to register her displays of discomfort. Once parsed of emotional bias, the details clearly indicate otherwise, but no matter, at least, to progressives.
As with so many instances of #MeToo, men are guilty until proven innocent — and even then they must be shamed and humiliated into silence. Writing for The Atlantic last year, Caitlin Flanagan offered some <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/the-humiliation-of-aziz-ansari/550541/">measure of wisdom</a> and common sense in Ansari’s debacle:
<blockquote>What she [Grace] felt afterward—rejected yet another time, by yet another man — was regret. And what she and the writer who told her story created was 3,000 words of revenge porn. The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari. Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.</blockquote>
Anna North’s indictment of Ansari is also a perfect example of the glaring moral inconsistencies that abound in progressive narratives. Chief among them is the notion of privilege. It has to be one of the most uncritical bits of nonsense that is bandied about ad nauseam by the likes of North.
To be sure, progressives only assert privilege when it’s convenient. When it’s not, they abandon it. North’s diatribe against Ansari is a testament to such confounding hypocrisy.
For the sake of argument, even if we abide by the notions of privilege that North and Vox insist on peddling, then they’re both as guilty as ever of exerting privilege over Aziz Ansari by their very own logic. North is a white woman lambasting a son of Muslim immigrants shades upon shades darker than her. Who, ultimately, gets to sit at the throne of victimhood here? According to progressives, we must cue the music of outrage to see who wins. There is no way to measure such nonsense outside of the decibel level of hysterics. This, however, is the terrible game of moral musical chairs progressives insist on playing over and over again.
#MeToo quickly became synonymous with a certain <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Letter">scarlet letter</a>. Just throw the hashtag on any man and watch him squirm under the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4twYqvssu0">public onslaught </a>as an avalanche of ruin looms overhead. At this rate, progressives might soon decide to gauge guilt or innocence by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunking">dunking</a>. Regardless, due process is fast going the way of the dinosaurs amid all the idiotic outrage and virtue signaling. Guilt or innocence is no longer a legal or moral issue. It has devolved into a popular vote driven by hashtags and social media. Men, in particular, are now at the mercy of these progressive pitchforks. Aziz Ansari just so happens to be one of the many examples in this pathetic mess.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51245/khan-brief-view-streets-addiction-epidemic-sharif-khan">KHAN: A Brief View From The Streets Of The Addiction Epidemic In California</a>

aziz_ansari_gi.jpg

KHAN: The Moral Musical Chairs Of The #MeToo Movement Continues

Aziz Ansari

Hollywood

MeToo

As I&#8217;ve made clear in recent pieces on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50612/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">addiction epidemic</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50201/khan-setting-record-straight-sharif-khan">deinstitutionalization</a>, I remain fiercely critical of the myopic, misguided progressive policies at play in the current homeless and addiction crisis in California. Still, meaningful faith won&#8217;t allow me to disregard the suffering right in front of me. I&#8217;m reminded of a quote from Dostoevsky in &#8220;Brothers Karamazov&#8221;:
<blockquote>Brothers, have no fear of men&#8217;s sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth.</blockquote>
It echoes a beautiful line from 2 Timothy 1:7:
<blockquote>For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.</blockquote>
It&#8217;s far too easy to pretend to know what may have led one down the treacherous path of addiction. The truth is, we often have no idea what siren songs of suffering and despair guide one to make such a terrible choice.
I’ll give just one anecdote to illustrate my point: One of my dearest friends over the last 20 years was addicted to heroin and alcohol some 10 years ago. What compelled him toward such addictions? His own father shot him up with heroin on a small, rural farm up north when my friend was a mere 15-year-old kid. So, again, we often just don&#8217;t know, and a measured kind of compassion becomes imperative, especially from a religious vantage point.
My Own Street View of the Crisis
I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time walking the wild streets of Los Angeles in my almost two decades here. In my many strolls, I&#8217;ve gotten to know some of the many homeless addicts that stumble through the neighborhoods around me. Here are a few of their stories in brief.
Melinda
I first met Melinda more than a decade ago outside of a Rite Aid. She has a genuinely sweet disposition completely at odds with her circumstances. She&#8217;s almost candid in her defeat. She doesn&#8217;t try any of the typical hustles when she sees me. There is no pitiable glance or mention of money. She just asks how I&#8217;m doing and I do the same. She had once gotten clean enough from heroin addiction to land a job at an animal clinic. She looked great, rejuvenated. A few months later, she was living out of a car more strung-out than ever.
These days, she&#8217;s doused in haggard makeup stumbling through the streets with a noticeable limp. She now openly sells herself for a fix. It&#8217;s absolutely heartbreaking to witness. So it goes.
Raj
Raj used to panhandle outside of a local Trader Joe&#8217;s. I&#8217;d sometimes grab him a sandwich or a soda. He&#8217;s also Punjabi. He says he ended up on the streets after his wife introduced him to meth. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s always difficult to gauge the veracity of the stories an addict tells. These days he takes what he can get – heroin, meth, anything.
Like many other homeless addicts, Raj also subsistence deals – that is, he deals simply to maintain his habit. The other day he jokingly asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I pretended I didn&#8217;t hear him and wished him well. I also know that the dealers higher up in the sinister food chain use addicts as dealers now because <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50612/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">Prop 47</a> reduced felony possession to a misdemeanor. The dealers know they can spread their contraband into manageable portions among subsistence dealers with little fear of legal reprisal.
As if fate conspires in its own mercurial ways, Raj and Melinda are a kind of couple at the moment. I see them together all the time, pushing their lonely carts down the various boulevards. It&#8217;s inscrutable and tragic to witness.
Danny
Danny harbors all the broken mannerisms of a homeless addict. It&#8217;s as though Atlas stones have broken him down into some wasted state of subservience, his head permanently bent down in some derelict act of penance.
Danny used to live in a van a few blocks down from where I live. Like so many other heroin addicts, he thought he could manage his addiction. Recovering heroin addicts will <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9huWlXFA1s">tell you over and over again</a> that the reason why heroin&#8217;s grip is so insidious is that it begins as a gentle breeze. The first few hits are manageable. The high simply softens the hard world a bit. One is convinced they only need it once or twice a month if at all. Almost always, within a year or less, they&#8217;re in the throes of full-blown addiction, using multiple times a day.
Danny always seems to be on the verge of tears whenever I talk to him. Today is no different. When I ask if he&#8217;s seen his 7-year-old son recently, he simply breaks down and weeps. I mention rehab for the umpteenth time. He finally looks up at me with a profound sense of dejection. It&#8217;s as though I’ve asked him to consider climbing to the moon.
Sometimes objectivity is only available at the bottom of the proverbial pit. Only then do we see the full view of our self-destruction and our suffering. It&#8217;s why my friends who attend AA insist that one often has to hit rock bottom before genuine change can occur. How much farther down Melinda, Raj and Danny must descend is beyond me. For many, there is no bottom. It&#8217;s impossible not to feel for them though, regardless of the terrible choices they&#8217;ve made. The only respite I can find is my firm belief that they remain in Gods hands, as do we all.
More from Sharif Khan: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50612/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">Addiction Fuels The Homelessness Crisis, Not Lack Of Housing Or Jobs</a>

Homeless Skid Row

KHAN: A Brief View From The Streets Of The Addiction Epidemic In California

Homelessness

Los Angeles

Recently, I chanced upon a new film, &#8220;The Peanut Butter Falcon.&#8221; It’s a small gem of a tale reminiscent of such recent offerings as &#8220;Mud&#8221; and &#8220;The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.&#8221;
&#8220;The Peanut Butter Falcon&#8221; is also a sincere homage to one of the most enduring books in all of American literature: Mark Twain&#8217;s timeless classic, &#8220;The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.&#8221; And while Huck Finn continues to be <a href="https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/07/a-school-district-drops-to-kill-a-mockingbird-and-huckleberry-finn-over-use-of-the-n-word/?noredirect=on">inexplicably banned</a> or marginalized in some circles, Twain&#8217;s masterpiece remains indelible to the American spirit.
Even the late Toni Morrison stated <a href="https://www.stjoe.k12.in.us/ourpages/auto/2013/12/10/59680878/Morrison%20Intro%20to%20Huck%20Finn.pdf">the following</a> in the introduction to my beloved copy of Huck Finn:
<blockquote>I was powerfully attracted to the combination of delight and fearful agitation lying entwined like crossed fingers in the pages. &#8230; It is classic literature, which is to say it heaves, manifests and lasts.</blockquote>
Similar to Huck Finn, who remains unabashedly a wild and heroic boy throughout the novel, the protagonist in &#8220;The Peanut Butter Falcon,&#8221; Tyler — played markedly well by Shia LeBeouf — gradually forms into an unapologetic man. He starts out broken and a bit of a loose cannon, but painstakingly emerges as a hero of sorts with decidedly traditional overtures of masculinity.
Tyler is hard-nosed, brave, and uncompromising when necessary. He&#8217;s brash and intrepid without compromising a sense of compassion toward others. He even echoes some semblance of faith in God without resorting to garish tropes. Rather than casting these traditionally masculine facets of character as hopelessly toxic, the film presents them in a refreshing and heroic light, especially by today&#8217;s standards.
Sacrifice as a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48101/walsh-when-toxic-masculinity-saved-world-matt-walsh">fundamental masculine ideal</a> also plays an integral role. More importantly, sacrifice in the film has meaning and purpose. It&#8217;s even given some spiritual significance for the characters as evidenced by the backwater baptism performed by a blind preacher in the murky waters of North Carolina. The religious symbolism in the scene resonates, at the very least, on a peripheral level. Regardless, kinship and brotherly love alongside a need for atonement drive Tyler toward this profound ideal. One is reminded of William James&#8217; sagacious words on the subject in &#8220;The Varieties of Religious Experience&#8221;:
<blockquote>In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case is necessary.</blockquote>
&#8220;The Peanut Butter Falcon&#8221; seems like an outlier among most of what Hollywood throws at us. The hero remains archetypical and masculine with no disjointed nod toward <a href="https://time.com/5503156/gillette-razors-toxic-masculinity/">trendy, idiotic norms</a>. In recent films like Marvel&#8217;s &#8220;Avengers&#8221; series, the heroes often devolve into progressive stereotypes and spew all sorts of politically correct drivel and dreck. Never mind how fatiguing such preachiness is, one is immediately taken out of the story. That final clunky sequence in the third act of &#8220;Avengers: Endgame&#8221; with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47681/extended-clip-captain-marvel-revealed-be-villain-ashe-schow">Captain Marvel</a> has to be one of the most insufferable attempts at progressive nonsense in film to date.
On the other hand, &#8220;The Peanut Butter Falcon&#8221; is deceptively simple and resonates with traditional charm — something we are clearly hard-pressed to find these days. And in doing so, the film ventures into timeless waters.

Shia LaBeouf

KHAN: The Peanut Butter Falcon, Huck Finn, And Traditional Masculinity

Conservatism

As the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730564629/homeless-rate-jumps-in-los-angeles">homeless population surges</a> here in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the sanctimonious outcry from progressives insisting on more housing and jobs rings more shrill and false than ever. The addiction epidemic remains the root of the crisis with no meaningful end in sight. Even in 2010, well before the opioid epidemic, the <a href="https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2010HomelessAssessmentReport.pdf">U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development</a> reported that more than half of the homeless population was either in the throes of addiction, mentally ill or both.
The Lunacy of Prop 47
If any one measure contributed to the veritable explosion of meth and heroin use on the streets of California, it’s <a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/prop47.htm">Proposition 47</a>. Infamously titled &#8220;The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act&#8221; by none other than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47">Kamala Harris</a> in 2014, Prop 47 inexplicably reduced felony drug possession and felony theft to misdemeanors in an anemic attempt to reduce overcrowding in prisons.
All the measure effectively accomplished, however, was to allow for open drug use just about everywhere including our neighborhoods and schools. As many Californians now witness on a daily basis, homeless addicts are now free to openly use meth and heroin anywhere, including public restrooms and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1wlV0X7CJM">subways</a>, with <a href="https://abc7news.com/can-bart-really-stop-drug-use-on-its-trains/3746755/">little fear of reprisal</a>. Prop 47 has tied the hands of law enforcement by reducing the severity of drug possession and theft to a mere slap on the wrist. Amid the festering addiction crisis, police departments across the state are now rendered impotent.
Boom Times for The Cartels
The utter lack of legal consequences from Prop 47 has made California a tremendous draw for addicts and dealers alike. More importantly, business is booming for the cartels across our border. According to the <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/la-meth-crisis-escalates-alongside-opioid-heroin-epidemic/">Courthouse News Service</a>:
<blockquote>[T]he Sinaloa Cartel is the leading player in a poly-drug trade that has largely shifted south of the border. Cartels produce and distribute massive quantities of meth into the U.S. through a route that starts in Southern California, moves northwards and then hooks to the east and into the heartland.</blockquote>
Sadder still, most of the illicit shipments of drugs from the cartels are arriving here through legal ports of entry. According to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/story/drug-trafficking-smuggling-cartels-tunnels/559814001/">USA Today</a>:
<blockquote>Last year more than 90 percent of the drug seizures happened in the port of entry, where millions of cars drive into San Diego from Mexico every year.</blockquote>
Demand for illicit drugs like meth and heroin continue to skyrocket. There are now <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html?source=post_page">130 overdose deaths</a> each and every day in America. The odds of dying from an overdose are now greater than dying in a car crash.
It&#8217;s tragically ironic when <a href="https://www.ics.uci.edu/~sternh/courses/265/kubrin_bartos.pdf">proponents of Prop 47</a> insist it hasn&#8217;t contributed to violent crimes, particularly when the Sinaloa Cartel continues to grip California in a stranglehold of addiction. To argue that there is no possible corollary between the two is either wildly ignorant or just flat-out chicanery. <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-isis-learned-from-the-cartels">ISIS learned to exploit brutality</a> and violence from the Sinaloa Cartel. That very same cartel that now runs much of the underworld here in California and across the country.
Legislating Dysfunction and Codependency
As is often the case in times of such crises, progressives demand we open up the coffers in an attempt to bury the issues beneath the proverbial billion-dollar rug. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti recently introduced the <a href="https://www.lamayor.org/mayor-garcetti-leads-coalition-mayors-calling-federal-action-confront-homelessness-crisis">Ending Homelessness Act</a> – yet another bit of tired legislation that refuses to address many of the actual issues involved in the crisis. According to <a href="https://reason.com/2019/07/03/california-politicians-want-more-federal-money-to-keep-doing-a-terrible-job-with-homelessness/">Reason</a>, the act would add an additional $13 billion to existing federal housing and homelessness programs.
Again, lost in all the rhetoric and rubrics from progressives is the addiction epidemic that continues to fester beyond control, especially among the exploding homeless population. Instead, politicians like Garcetti clamor for more housing and employment ad nauseam simply to pander to their bases and enable the crisis. Apparently, it&#8217;s just not politically expedient to address the tweaking elephant in the room.
There are no longer any meaningful consequences for openly using or dealing illicit drugs in our neighborhoods and in our streets. As a result, the homelessness issue has fomented into a full-blown addiction epidemic. For progressives to argue that the crisis is rooted in housing and jobs is nothing short of typical myopic, misguided pity toward a pressing issue here in California and — increasingly — all across America.

Homeless Tents

KHAN: Addiction Fuels The Homelessness Crisis, Not Lack Of Housing Or Jobs

California

Kamala Harris

The Left continues to paint a false narrative regarding the surging homeless population here in Los Angeles, insisting it’s some nefarious result of conservatism gone awry. They argue measures that harken back to President Reagan’s two terms as governor of California, and later as our president, remain the driving factors for the current crisis. A <a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/">2013 hit piece for Salon</a> drives this point home with various unsubstantiated claims masquerading as facts as well as patently ridiculous assertions regarding the role of deinstitutionalization and mental illness. Here’s just one particular gem:
<blockquote>President Reagan never understood mental illness. … he was a product of the Southern California culture that associated psychiatry with Communism.</blockquote>
In fact, the move to deinstitutionalize hundreds of thousands of mentally ill was driven almost entirely by the outcry against just how cruel and inhumane many mental institutions had become for the better part of the twentieth century. Novels and films such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest only fueled the outrage. The very <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/history-of-asylums/">fictitious Arkham Asylum</a> is said to be modeled after the very real Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts. Many mental institutions had become veritable prisons for the mentally ill. Even now the very notion of an asylum conjures up images of forced lobotomies and straightjackets for most of us.
Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 1967
A particular claim the Left bandies about is that Reagan signing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%80%93Short_Act">Lanterman-Petris-Short Act</a> in 1967 as governor of California left countless mentally ill abandoned to the streets. They insist that somehow this very bipartisan act is the epicenter for the homelessness explosion some decades ago, particularly here in California. This is patently false.
First and foremost, deinstitutionalization began in the 1950s with the introduction of Thorazine. It was hoped that the drug would prevent many from being institutionalized for their mental illness. According to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/special/excerpt.html">PBS’s Frontline</a>:
<blockquote>Deinstitutionalization began in 1955 with the widespread introduction of chlorpromazine, commonly known as Thorazine, the first effective antipsychotic medication, and received a major impetus 10 years later with the enactment of federal Medicaid and Medicare.</blockquote>
Secondly, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act is often viewed as a progenitor for a patient’s bill of rights. Then-governor Reagan’s intentions were to safeguard and protect the rights of Americans institutionalized against their will for indefinite periods of time. The impetus behind deinstitutionalization was far more a civil rights issue and much less a budgetary one. To argue otherwise is just dishonest.
O’Connor vs. Donaldson
If any ruling had a seismic effect on the status of the mentally ill and homelessness in America, it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson">O’Connor vs. Donaldson</a>. The landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1975 was the final nail in the coffin for involuntary holds in mental institutions all across America. Individuals who were not a threat to themselves or to others alongside the nebulous proviso of being able to reasonably survive on their own could no longer be held against their will. This particular ruling, more than anything else, contributed to the nationwide surge of the mentally ill among the homeless population.
The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980
President Carter’s attempt to address the burgeoning mental health crisis with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980">The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980</a> proved an ill-advised piece of bureaucratic bloat. The law was based on the earlier findings from the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690151/">Presidential Commission on Mental Health</a>. However, the findings from this commission were, at best, vague if not misleading. The intentions may have been sound but the approach and execution proved inadequate.
The subsequent legislation that President Carter drew up was simply an incredibly expensive bit of dressing on a very deep wound. President Reagan had little to no choice upon being elected to repeal the law. Perhaps an unpopular decision, but a necessary one to help set aright the economy considering the recession he’d just inherited from his predecessor.
Homelessness and deinstitutionalization remain a complex issue with no easy answers at the ready. The Left is convinced as always that throwing money at the problem will somehow magically make it go away. They also readily disregard the vital role civil rights played in deinstitutionalization across America. It’s supremely ironic never mind frightening that the Left seems to demand that we harken back to a darker time when the mentally ill were simply locked away and forgotten.

KHAN: Setting The Record Straight On Deinstitutionalization And The Current Homelessness Crisis In California

Ronald Reagan

Recently, my gal and I stumbled into the movie theaters for a showing of Annabelle Comes Home on a restless Friday night. It’s the third film in the Annabelle series and the sixth in the increasingly convoluted Conjuring universe. The very first film, The Conjuring, is destined to be a classic. The various spin-offs, however, including this most recent offering often pale in comparison to the original. They can veer from average to comically bad in a heartbeat outside a few compelling scenes and jump scares here and there. In short, Annabelle Comes Home was as fun as it was forgettable.
Horror can certainly be a genre that suffers from cheap thrills and tired formulas. Still, the dread, uncertainty and sort of deep, Jungian fear of the unknown that a good horror film elicits can also lead to a healthy amount of religious introspection. If one abides by a certain amount of faith and fear of God in their lives even the most clichéd supernatural thriller can lead to some reasonable theological food for thought. I actually seek out horror films and supernatural thrillers to reify some sense of faith as odd as that may sound to some.
When done reasonably well, horror films and novels allow one to reckon with veritable unknowns outside the seemingly drab, empirical scope of our being. The existential dread that a scary tale evokes forces one into the arena of faith and God — a domain many of us often grant only a kind of lip service to in our busy, tedious lives.
Unlike any other genre, God is often actively sought out for protection in horror. Such reaching toward the high heavens is an absolute rarity these days in entertainment, particularly when any explicit mention of God is met with so much mockery and derision in the media and elsewhere unless reduced to some New Age slop.
Often as the climax approaches in these films, the protagonists are left with literally no other choice but to call upon God for help. No physical strength or prowess can avail them against the evil that confronts them. For example, in Annabelle Come Homes, a young girl cornered by a demonic presence successfully brandishes a cross to thwart the evil. Though brandishing a cross or praying are common symbolic tropes throughout horror films, it touches upon a reality that holds true for many of us when we contemplate our own sense of existential dread in fear and trembling. Namely, that we must continually yield to God and trust in His Strength, Wisdom and Mercy no matter how dire or demanding our circumstances.
Oddly enough, as I watched Annabelle Comes Home I was reminded of Viktor Frankl’s timeless masterpiece, Man’s Search For Meaning. Frankl recounts the horrors he witnessed in the Holocaust alongside the endless wellspring of strength he drew from his faith in God to persevere and finally endure. A particular line always resonates with me:
<blockquote>“Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths…The rift dividing good from evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches into the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss&#8230;” – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning</blockquote>
Obviously, the humdrum monotony that most of our lives entail pales in comparison to the abject horrors of the Holocaust. As a result, we are rarely aware of this rift within ourselves as we hurdle through life at an increasingly maddening, anxious pace. However, something as seemingly innocuous as a horror film can continually remind us that this distinction exists, especially within ourselves. Faith needn’t always be some vexing labyrinth of exegetical constructs and theological disputes. Sometimes the best reminders of God and our place before Him are the most simple.

Menu

Sharif Khan

Articles by Sharif Khan