The Things People Say

The Things People Say by Bill Wilson

My mother always told me, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." It's a good axiom to live by, although her son would grow up to be an investigative journalist who had a lot of things to say that some people may not consider nice. Hey, I try. One of the horrible things that has happened in our country is the nonsense, visceral, slanderous culture of late where it seems that my mother's saying has been twisted to: "If you can't say something mean, don't say anything at all." Now there is enough of this ill-will being pushed into the 24/7 news cycle that very few people can escape the poisonous impact of the things people say, and who is saying them. Here are just a few, judge for yourself.

During CNN's "Situation Room" Monday, Representative Denny Heck (D-WA) said, "the president hates all immigrants, except his mother- and father-in-law and his wife, evidently. He hates them whether they're here without documents, they're here with a green card, they're here seeking asylum. He hates them all." On Monday's broadcast of MSNBC's "All In," 2020 presidential candidate former HUD Secretary and former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro (D) said, "this administration is not just against undocumented immigrants, it's also against legal immigrants ...And it goes back to what he's displayed from the beginning of his political career, from birtherism, to the way he started his campaign, to those comments about the Mexican-American judge, to his comments about Ilhan Omar and her colleagues. He wants a whiter, wealthier nation."

The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, released an editorial this week blasted enforcement of national immigration law as "cruel" and said U.S. businesses should not be deprived of employing illegal alien workers. Bette Midler tweeted Sunday, "After two years, we are all experts on Donald Trump!!! A racist, white supremacist nutjob with a coterie of criminals to enable him." Monday on MSNBC's "MTP Daily," network political analyst Zerlina Maxwell said, "If you are supporting a president that is caging brown babies and you are okay with that, then I'm sorry, that is supporting racist policies, and that is not distinct from supporting a racist president. I think that often we try to get into this semantic game because people take the label of racist so personally as if I'm saying that you're a terrible human and that you're evil."

Presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) Sunday said Trump, "has been fueling the flames of hate. I said recently on the issue of El Paso...when people ask me is he responsible for these killings? Well no he obviously didn't pull the trigger, but he's sure been tweeting out the ammunition." Actress Sophia Bush tweeted about the recent mass shootings: "Trump is to blame. His incitement of hate is grounds enough for impeachment." In reading these quotes, and they are just a small sampling, who is spewing forth the hate and incitement? Notice how the media is a willing vehicle. As Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-20, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart...For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies"