Lowered Expectations

“Shame on the hierarchy who covers up truth through a conspiracy of fear.” — Father James Altman We were several blocks away from the Methodist Hospital in Germantown about a year-and-half ago, when I heard a noise and looked away to another table nearby.

There, a man and woman were eating, side by side on a bench.

In the aisle at the same table was, what I assumed, their child in a wheelchair. I knew many patients and their families ducked in for lunch at the nearby eating establishments, in between visiting hours, or in outpatient mode, or to bring back food to those who could take outside food.

And here was a family with a member who was most likely a patient — a little girl — judging from her appearance, about eight or so.

She was fidgeting. Or at least, I thought she was fidgeting at first, until I saw that she could not stop moving, or vocalizing.

The little girl was in the grip of some awful malady; a condition that most likely was a permanent one — forever moving, groaning, wailing.

The ones with her — again, presumably her parents — were patiently eating and filling her mouth as well. They were calm, seemingly at ease; it appeared, completely accepting of it all.

And I thought to myself: “ That's what it is like to be a family.

Because no matter what limitations life puts on each of us, or what kudos we achieve, we are part of one unit, that has absolutely no limitations on love. We all belong to a family, no matter what.”

I have never forgotten the picture of those three that day. It has stuck in my mind ever since.

Yet, now, there are some, including Black Lives Matter, out there who say we don't need the family anymore.

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‘Wordaholic’

By Robert L. Hall ROBERT HALL(cont.)

“We disrupt the Westernprescribed nuclear family structure requirement,” the site declares, “by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another, especially our children.

Huh?

I wonder if there are any big government-appointed nannies out there who will support that girl I saw in the restaurant in nearly attentive a fashion as that attentive lady and father who were keeping on eye on her and who were her be-all and end-all in this world?

What 'village' (and by village, they mean 'government entity') can BLM come up with that will feed, wash, dress and take her to medical appointments on time-even to specialists and the like-so that that little girl can simply exist in a life that seems to have already stacked the deck against her chances for survival?

And there's more.

The BLM has no room for male counterparts in the family.

“We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered,” the group says, calling single mothers' “double shifts” of working and parenting a “patriarchal practice.”

Gee, I guess that would be bad news for the woman at the table that I saw.

For according to Black Lives Matter, her husband should just take off and leave her to support herself and a child with special needs?

To me, that seems “double cruelty.”

After all, he should be responsible for that child, as a biological father.

At least that's what a modern- day court still maintains

a judgment for child support these days.

But, maybe BLM will change all that if they and the Democrats get in power? Who knows?

Certainly, BLM doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

They declare that they hark back to a time when black liberation movements overemphasized the black man as a symbol of power.

It's that whole intersectionality thingy, you see?

Eye roll here.

But, hey, don't worry!

We have Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project, so we'll all be prepped up to embrace Communism, when Bejing Biden becomes president.

When it comes to our shores, the militant arm of the Democrat-Socialist Party-Antifa and Black Lives Matters will have us preconditioned to being led around by our noses, so that when they take our guns, beat and murder us in the streets, we will be so weak-willed and docile that we will be interred into reeducation camps… no problem.

So that we will be used to having guards aiming guns at our heads and being marched in chain gangs on work farms.

A-a-a-a.

“Farm living is the life for me,” as the TV show,

used to say.

Soooo, we have that going for us.

And it all starts with destruction of the family unit.

One might think this madness… that it won't happen in my country.

Respectfully, you might want to give that a second think.

Today's Democrat-Socialists are not your father's or grandfather's Democrats. And perhaps it isn't so far-fetched, what they are trying to do to this country? Maybe it is a systematic campaign by the far-left to immobilize the population and make it dependant on the State (that's with a big 'S'). And by isolating us, frightening us, and making us needy, to control us far easier.

I'll leave you with a final thought.

Franklin D. Roosevelt — a Democratic President — once said, “The only thing we have to fear is… fear itself.”

However, today, the modern Democrat-Socialists slogan should be, “All we have to offer is… fear

Robert L. Hall is a resident of Marion and has a Bachelor’s Degree in music from the University of Memphis and a Master’s Degree from Florida State University. He is the pianist for Avondale Baptist Church and a writer of fiction on Amazon eBooks.