Notes From Gordon 250123: Mrs. Johnson Was a Good American

Note to the reader:
Today’s article is from my book, Your Dangerous Neighbors: Essays On Freedom, which you can download for free as a PDF from my website HERE.

ATTENTION SPAN NOTICE
Reading time: 886 words @ 238 wpm = 3 minutes, 43 seconds

TONE: Troublingly real with a smattering of scorn.

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Mrs. Johnson Was a Good American

"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are." — H.L. Mencken

Let me introduce you to Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson is the lady who lived next door. She passed away last week at the age of 85.

Mrs. Johnson had loved her country, but refused to believe anything she didn't hear on the evening news or read in her establishment newspaper.

She had believed President Franklin Roosevelt when he promised that no one's son would ever go to war to fight on foreign soil for foreign interests.

She had believed that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a total surprise to the government, and that the A-bomb dropped on Japan was necessary to end the war in the Pacific.

Her own son, William, had died in that war on Okinawa, a hero who had sacrificed his life to make the world safe for democracy.

Mrs. Johnson was unaware that America is not, and never has been, a democracy; that America was founded as a constitutionally limited Republic; that every democracy in human history has ended in totalitarianism, a fact well understood by our nation’s founders.

Mrs. Johnson was unaware that FDR knew full well that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor and lied to the American people to incense young men like William into war.

Or that the decision was made by President Harry Truman to drop a hellish nuclear weapon on helpless Japanese civilians, even as their emperor was desperately trying to surrender through back door diplomatic channels.

William didn’t know these things, either. Nevertheless, Mrs. Johnson was proud of William and placed fresh flowers at his grave each Memorial Day.

Mrs. Johnson scoffed at the idea that America could have abandoned POW's to die in Soviet forced labor camps after the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

She refused to believe that there was such a secretive group as the Bilderbergers. If there were, certainly Tom Brokaw or her favorite evening newsreader, that handsome Peter Jennings, would have told her so.

She had believed that nice Walter Cronkite when he told her on the evening news that JFK was shot and killed from behind by a crazed lone gunman.

She had heard that Randy Weaver was a crazy racist and certainly not a family man, although she felt bad for that poor wife of his for getting shot through the head by an FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge while holding her baby in her arms. That's what happens to extremists who get all caught up with guns.

She was shocked that those religious fanatics in Waco, Texas had refused to let their children come out of their “compound,” preferring to die together in a suicide pact. The news had made that clear enough.

That U.S. army tanks operated by the FBI could be seen on the evening news rumbling across the front lawn of the American church where those nutty Branch Davidians lived was not of concern to Mrs. Johnson. Obviously, the government was doing what they needed to do, and it would all be for the best.

She had believed the news when they told her that nineteen skinny Arabs had overpowered three airliners and outwitted the most sophisticated military in the world that somehow couldn’t get any jet interceptors off the ground for a full 90 minutes.

And all under the guidance of a terrorist mastermind directing their activities over a cell phone from a cave in Afghanistan.

Mrs. Johnson’s TV screen showed her the remaining rubble piles of what used to be two of the tallest buildings in the world. Those piles were scarcely as tall as the original lobbies of those Twin Towers, yet it never occurred to her to suspect that something in this physical universe was very, very wrong.

Mrs. Johnson died without ever knowing the truth about any of these things. She had believed that whatever her doctor told her about cancer was right. She died of cancer, but because her doctor had never recommended natural therapies she had scoffed at the idea of trying them.

If her doctor prescribed it, she could “take it to the bank.” If not, that's because it probably wasn't "approved."

There are millions of Mrs. Johnsons who will sit on their living room sofas this evening, bathing in the light-emitting beam from their television sets and continuing to believe all of the things that Mrs. Johnson would still believe, were she with us today.

Maybe she still is.