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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Weekend Edition-December 23-24, 2022
Nate McCullough Group Editor | 770-718-3431 | nmccullough@gainesvilletimes.com
Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com
The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
JOEY WEATHERFORD I Tribune News Service
The light of the world
The people walking in dark
ness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land
of deep darkness a ligh t has
dawned.-Isaiah 9:2 (NIV)
Circle of love, halo of light
When Jesus was born on
that Christmas nigh t.
And oh, what a night that
holy night was
When Bethlehem glowed in
a circle oflove-
— Dolly Par ton
At this time of year, the images of
light abound. Our houses and lawns are
ablaze with light as Christians and non-
Christians alike celebrate a holiday
originally designed to celebrate the
arrival of “the light of the world.”
I suppose it is somewhat ironic that
the secular seems to have overtaken
a holiday that probably grew out of
pagan celebrations already in place
which honored the turn of the year at
the winter solstice. The Yule or “ Jul”
celebrations had already been around
for thousands of years and the winter
celebration known as Saturnalia was
celebrated by the Romans.
Light is also a prominent part of the
Jewish festival of Hanukkah as people
light the menorah in remembrance of
the re-dedication of the Second Temple
and the recovery of Jerusalem during
the Maccabean revolt. The celebra
tion is also sometimes known as “The
Festival of Lights” in remembrance of
the miraculous extension of a single jar
of oil which enabled lamps to be lit for
eight days.
It is a characteristic of light that no
matter how deep the dark
ness is, light is not overcome
by it. In fact, light dispels
darkness, and the greater the
light, the less of the darkness.
Light is powerful and com
forting. It symbolizes knowl
edge or “enlightenment.”
The Magi, those “wise
men” of the Bible, after
all, followed the light of a
new star.
At the house, we keep a couple of
night-lights burning to make easier
those pre-dawn trips to the bathroom
or the kitchen to grab a drink of water.
It’s amazing how much clarity those
tiny bulbs add to the situation.
In the darkness that existed along
the Western Front during World War
I on Christmas Eve, the allied soldiers
huddled in the trenches began to hear
something, and it wasn’t the sound of
gunfire. It was the sound of a German
soldier singing, “Stille Nacht, heilige
Nacht, Alles schlaft; einsam wacht...”
Perhaps they did not know the mean
ing of the words, but they recognized
the melody. It was “Silent Night:” and
they began to sing along.
By the dawn of Christmas Day,
at various places along the West
ern Front, an unofficial truce was
declared. The soldiers from both
sides met in no-man’s land and
exchanged small gifts of trinkets,
buttons, hats, candy and cigarettes.
Then, in perhaps the most outland
ish event of the Great War, they orga
nized a soccer match! The War was
put on hold, to allow peace on earth.
The light of peace broke through
the darkness of a world war, if only
for a little time.
Sadly, the truce was not to last.
Soon enough, somebody shot some
body else, and the war resumed for
nearly four more years.
Yet, on that Christmas in 1914,
those soldiers declared, “On this
day, I will not kill anyone. On this
day, I will wage peace, not war. On
this day, I will play soccer, instead of
using a machine gun. On this day, I
choose to live in the light.”
It occurs to me that we have to
make decisions every day. We can
choose to do good or to do evil. We
can choose light over darkness.
When the angelic chorus filled the
skies with light and song on that first
Christmas, it sang about peace on
earth and good will to mortals. These
days, in such a contentious society
with war abounding, does that seem
like a pipe dream?
I remind you that in the middle of a
World War, on Christmas, young men
chose to battle each other in soccer,
rather than battle with guns and bayo
nets. If they can do that, why can’t we?
The answer is, we can, and not just
at Christmas but all the time.
May the Light of the World shine
upon you this holiday season and
grant you His peace, now and always.
Merry Christmas!
R. Garry Glenn is a certified lay servant and
guest speaker from McEver Road United
Methodist Church. He and his wife Jill live
in Oakwood with their dog, Rue.
R. GARRY GLENN
McEver Road United
Methodist Church
DANA SUMMERS I Tribune News Service
A bad year for
authoritarianism
As 2022 draws to a close, it’s worth cel
ebrating that this hasn’t been a good year for
authoritarianism.
This might seem Pollyannish. After all,
just last month, the
International Institute
for Democracy and
Electoral Assistance
issued a report conclud
ing that democracy
is in decline while
authoritarianism is
deepening. Freedom
House cataloged “The
Global Expansion of
Authoritarian Rule”
back in February. “The
global order is near
ing a tipping point,”
the nonprofit declared, “and if democracy’s
defenders do not work together to help guar
antee freedom for all people, the authori
tarian model will prevail.” A Pew study of
global attitudes concluded in May: “As demo
cratic nations have wrestled with economic,
social and geopolitical upheaval in recent
years, the future of liberal democracy has
come into question.”
I don’t dispute any of that, with one caveat:
The future of liberal democracy is pretty
much always an open question, because
liberal democracy is always under threat
from the authoritarian temptation. Authori
tarianism comes naturally to humans, while
liberalism has to be taught — and fought for.
Whenever liberal democratic capitalism
seems to stumble — which is often — author
itarianism suddenly seems like a viable
alternative (I wrote a whole book about this).
Sadly, authoritarianism can sound appeal
ing in the abstract, but people tend not to
like it when they actually experience it. And
while it often works very well for the authori
tarians themselves — Vladimir Putin may, in
fact, be the world’s richest man — it fails for
the average citizen.
People need to see the failures. As
Edmund Burke said, “Example is the school
of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”
But it isn’t failure per se that undermines
authoritarianism. Every system is flawed,
every government makes mistakes. It is the
inability to admit and remedy mistakes that
is authoritarianism’s Achilles’ heel.
Over the weekend, the New York Times
published an article on how Putin badly blun
dered in his attempt to conquer Ukraine in a
matter of days.
Perhaps the biggest lesson is that in a
system lacking a free press, democratic
oversight and any incentive to point out
problems, the war planners became blind to
even the most obvious problems. Instead of
the “walk in a park” Putin had been assured,
the Russian military revealed itself to be
shot through with corruption and ineptitude
— because the dumbest thing you can do
in Putin’s Russia is tell him something he
doesn’t want to hear.
Putin and his brand of despotism had a lot
more fans at the beginning of 2022 than at
the end, because his disastrous war demon
strated how much stronger he was on paper
than in reality.
Iran is another example for mankind. The
ruling regime is having its worst crisis of
popular legitimacy since the Islamic Revo
lution in 1979 because the Iranian people
have been denied any ability to meaning
fully redress injustice — or even call atten
tion to it — other than mass protest and
disobedience.
And in China, widely considered best-in-
class among authoritarian regimes, Presi
dent Xi Jinping has reversed course after
two years of a “zero tolerance” COVID-19
policy that involved welding people into their
homes during lockdowns. The reversal is
welcome, but it only came after vast sponta
neous protests shook the regime and called
into question Xi’s grip on power.
Say what you will about all of our missteps
in response to COVID-19, we are in a far bet
ter place today than China — the subject of
so much admiration early in the pandemic
— which didn’t use the last two years to
develop viable vaccines of its own or buy
them from the West. At best, authoritarian
ism didn’t prevent a COVID-19 reckoning but
merely postponed it.
In the U.S., and the democratic world
generally, the fad of illiberalism can seem
appealing, in part because our system’s
failures are always on display, while authori
tarianism’s remain hidden behind Potem
kin facades until the victims can’t take the
oppression anymore. That’s why authoritar
ian regimes are often like marble — very
strong, but also very brittle — and when they
crumble it almost always comes as a sur
prise, at least to their admirers abroad.
Sadly, I don’t think the Chinese regime is
about to crumble any time soon, though I’m
less gloomy about Russia or Iran. I do think
they will all crumble eventually, because tyr
anny is not sustainable over the long haul —
when there is a viable alternative available.
This has been a good year for that alterna
tive, because I think at the end of 2022, fewer
people look around at authoritarianism in
the real world and think: That’s the future I
want to be part of.
Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National
Review Online and a visiting fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute.
JONAH GOLDBERG
goldbergcolumn@
gmail.com
(the (Times
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