Christ and The Pharisees
(from here)
The video below shows the speech Senator Susan Collins gave when she explained her reasons for voting for the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. It was a good speech. Collins provided an excellent defense of the legal tradition the requires a presumption of innocence.
Susan Collins’ Strong Speech describes the speech just about the way I would (contains link to a transcript too). As a Conservative I too pray that Collins has underestimated Kavanaugh’s Conservativism, but I doubt she has. Frankly, I expect very few judges at any level on the Federal judicary would overturn same-sex “marriage”, and I suspect there is even less chance any would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. We usually don’t think of our well off, highly educated elites as being brainwashed, and they are not. Yet they are heavily indoctrinated. To succeed in their professions, they must participate in their indoctrination with great enthusiasm. That should make both them and us wary of the potential for bias in their instruction.
Collins expressed some concerns about our divisions. Here is where she comes closest to an explanation.
We live in a time of such great disunity, as the bitter fight over this nomination both in the Senate and among the public clearly demonstrates. It is not merely a case of differing groups having different opinions. It is a case of people bearing extreme ill will toward those who disagree with them. In our intense focus on our differences, )we have forgotten the common values that bind us together as Americans. When some of our best minds are seeking to develop even more sophisticated algorithms designed to link us to websites that only reinforce and cater to our views, we can only expect our differences to intensify. (from here)
I suppose we would be ill-advised to put too much into those words. Collins sought to explain her vote for Kavanaugh, not to heal our nation’s divisions, but does she grasp the cause for our divisions?
Why do we have strife (James 4:1-5)? Isn’t the answer obvious? It seems that way. Live and let live is an old philosophy for getting along with others. It involves a simple compromise. Live your own way, and let others, your neighbors, live their own way.
So why don’t have a simple compromise that allows us to live in peace? Why do we have law libraries, judges, juries, prisons, policemen, and so forth? Why do we have armies, navies, and air forces prepared to destroy nations? To live, must we literally threaten each others lives and then allow each other to live? Is Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) the only means we have for peace?
Why doesn’t the simple solution work? Doesn’t the Bible provide the best explanation? Instead of loving our neighbors, we love ourselves too much. We are too full of pride, too full of ourselves to care about anyone else.
When we read the Bible, we must hold it up as a mirror (James 1:22-25). We must remind ourselves that when Jesus said He came to save sinners He came to save “me” (1 Timothy 1:12-17).
When we read how Jesus castigated the Pharisees and the scribes (Matthew 23)– the teachers of the law — we must remember that these men were held up in great esteem by the Jews. They regarded them as the best and the most religious among them. Yet Jesus said the works of the Pharisees would not save them (Matthew 5:17-20). They were still sinners. In fact, they were guilty of a grave sin. They had twisted the law, the words of the Bible, to serve themselves instead of the Will of God (Mark 7:1-23).
Because we are a nation of free men and women, we all have the opportunity to behave like the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes — the teachers of the law. When we obey the Bible, our Constitution, legal codes, regulations, traffic laws, codes of conduct, and so forth; we can pretend to obey. We can even pretend that what is written says something it does not. Then, when it seems we have gotten away with our hypocrisies, we can point to precedent and praise the “stability” brought about by our time honored lies. However, as Jesus told the Pharisees, only the truth, not lies, sets us free (John 8:31-36).
Citizen Tom 
Like a personal cake you served up CT, even vanilla. 😉
Good work, and agree with your observations of course.
Ahh, pride. It’s all pride,hubris, arrogance, an inability or unwillingness to face the fact that it just isn’t all about you. Kind of funny, many of the Kavanaugh protesters are very young. So I was trying to offer some wisdom, provide some comfort. The idea being expressed was “democracy is dead, America is dead.” I chimed in that we say that about every 3 mos…. for some 200 yrs now. It didn’t go over very well. Everyone was just shrieking, “this is the worst thing to ever happened.” Right, like we said that when Nixon resigned. Kennedy was assassinated. I mean politically stuff happens, it’s not the end of the world. Your parents,your grandparents have walked here already.
But sheesh, talk about indoctrination, brainwashing. These young people have been told their elders know nothing, avoid history, it was all evil. Only you are the enlightened or “woke” ones. That’s exceedingly cruel. These poor kids are in a state of emotional and political distress, not realizing how they are being played, used in a game they don’t even understand. So if you’re forbidden to even consider or talk to the opposition least you get some “unwokeness” on you, I don’t even know what to say. That’s just crazy.
“We usually don’t think of our well off, highly educated elites as being brainwashed, and they are not. Yet they are heavily indoctrinated.” Have you noticed that all nine Supreme Court justices graduated from either Harvard or Yale? That’s a small number of law professors who shaped the legal judgment of all the minds placed on our nation’s highest court. Fifty years ago, President Nixon tried to make the Court more regionally diverse, representing more than just the northeastern states. He received a great deal of opposition. J.
@Salvageable
Bingo! Too many of our leading lights come from the same institutions. Add to that the fact that Federal funding increases the uniformity of thinking in our university system.
We make a big deal out of diversity. Then we actively suppress a diversity of thought? Isn’t that hypocritical?
Well said: “However, as Jesus told the Pharisees, only the truth, not lies, sets us free”.
Jesus is the truth!
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Master Jesus the Messiah, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.