Burning both ends of the candle to light the middle

By Tony Farkas
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In my daily travels through the bizarreness that passes for news stories, I constantly come across examples of projection and denial of epic proportions, particularly when it comes to politics.

Those currently in power, regardless of stripes, will lambaste certain groups with accusations of division and hate while exhibiting those very same qualities.

It’s like one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” where two last members of the planet Cheron were locked in a never-ending deathmatch over something as simple as color.

For the uninformed, the antagonists/protagonists were half black, half white, but with a difference: one was black on the left, the other on the right.

It plays out as a perfect analogy for the current political situation — left vs. right — with acid dripping from both sides.

One of the most heinous examples of this is the battle over inclusion and diversity, in particular the hatred coming from liberals, who blame conservatives for keeping minorities and disenfranchised subsets of society down.

Funny thing is, though, is that in order to stifle any argument, the left will lob Molotov divisions, such as white privilege or evil Christianity or rich people hatin’ on the poor by not paying their fair share of taxes for whatever hairbrained scheme that comes up next.

It’s not just limited to the government, either, since public groups existing in the name of social justice have to have demons to prop up their existence, and these things are even now creeping into the private business world in the form of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion scores.

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All that being said, it’s a pretty easy leap to figure out what portion of society is demonized for all of the country’s evils: white folks and Christians.

I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments: Christians, supposedly proselytizing love and acceptance, have too much influence in this country, forcing groups like transphibians, the alphabet corps and minorities into hiding because of their narrow-mindedness and inability to love unconditionally.

Of course, you never hear about Muslims, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Shintos, Buddhists or any other religion being roasted on the coals of public discourse for a variety of reasons; my belief is that the perception of Christianity being mostly white having something to do with that.

By using these kinds of tactics, though, it evokes the pure, unadulterated hatred that led to the rise of the Sturmabteilung (German brownshirts), who started with simple rhetoric but escalated to violence and ultimately the Night of the Long Knives.

While we may simply put hateful and purposefully divisive speech off as grandstanding, it’s the one side of the candle being lit; the hypocrisy on the part of the speakers, and the use of government as the hammer to the anvil is the other side. When the flames meet in the middle, someone or something is going to get hurt or worse.

It happened in czarist Russia; it happened in Germany; it happened in Cambodia; it happens in Israel; it even happened in the U.S. during World War II and the interment caps for Japanese people.

If something like open and honest dialogue were ever to occur, we could maybe find a way to get beyond such pettiness before it gets out of hand. Historically, though, it probably won’t happen, at least not until acceptance is practiced on all sides.

Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..