The Ugliest Weekend

Monday, July 13, 2026

Civility and decency is dying in this nation – that’s not news.  But this past weekend saw that fact revealed in new, and to my mind hideous, ways.  Not since the murder of Charlie Kirk have we seen the ugliness that hides just below the surface so nakedly revealed.  It started when I learned that not satisfied with the real and ugly racism that has stained our country – some “historians” have decided to make stuff up.  What purpose does that serve other than to fan the flames of hatred and animus that seems so pervasive these days.

My mood turned foul when I learned that CNBC decided my adopted, and beloved, home of Tennessee was the worst place to live in the nation.  Their reason? – they find it “intolerant.”  Please, I was driven out California by the smug superiority of liberals that called me names and ostracized me simply for having a different political opinion than they.  California, where liberals rule and that stripped people of their humanity during covid, reducing them to disease vectors, and only that.  Coming to Tennessee during that period was like escaping the Soviet Union.  California that has gotten so bad, even the motion picture industry is thinking about leaving.  And Tennessee is intolerant?  Just spare me the sanctimony.

A coffee shop in Milwaukee, one where a highly visible member of the Trump administration stopped for a cuppa last week, has seen such a precipitous decline in it business that it has been reduced to online apologies and and support denials in an effort to regain its business.  A coffee shop dared to serve a guy a cup of coffee, took a few pictures with him because he was, after all, a celebrity – and they are close to being driven out of business?!?!?!?  What is that if it is not pure, unadulterated hatred?

Senator Lindsey Graham died, suddenly, over the weekend.  And some online decided to gloat.  A human being died, leaving family and friends devastated and all this bunch can see is an opportunity to polish their own apple?!  If that is not appalling, I do not know what is.

As several of these links point out – the irony in all this is thick, very thick.  Liberals that march in the name of tolerance have become not merely intolerant, but animated by hatred.  I have said it before and I will say it again, The Screwtape Letters is a must, oft repeated, read for anyone that wants to be a decent human being.  This sort of hatred results from a slow perversion of goodness and Screwtape reveals the many ways in which that perversion can happen.

We cannot let being the object of hatred reduce us to similar hatred.  That is one of the perversions that has been used to drag us to this point.  But we also cannot let this hatred control us. Come to Tennessee on vacation – you will find it wonderful.  If you are near Milwaukee – go to that coffee shop and spend.  If you see the vile bile coming out after Graham’s death, denounce it.  We can oppose without animus and oppose we must.  We cannot let our politics be reduced to to this level.