The following is adapted from the tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen

One day long ago, in an Empire far, far away, there was an Emperor, and he was approached by two tailors. They promised to make him the most beautiful, exquisite clothes, which would not be able to be seen by anyone stupid or inferior. The Emperor agreed, and once the clothes were made he went to see them. When he arrived at the shop, he only saw two mannequins, with no clothes on them. The tailors were actually thieves, and they had made no clothes. However, the Emperor, not wanting to look stupid or inferior, praised the Tailors for their fine work and applauded them for the delicate embroidery. He decided to have a parade through his Empire, so that all could admire the clothes.

Despite the fact that he was naked, the entire city, not wanting to be perceived as stupid or inferior, pretended to admire the clothes- and murmured amongst them how beautiful the Emperor’s new clothes were! This continued until finally, one little boy cried out loudly, “The Emperor is naked! He isn’t wearing any clothes!” Finally, the entire city realized that he was right, including the Emperor. The Emperor was in fact, naked.

When I heard this story repeated on the radio a few days ago, I was shocked when I realized that this is how our society has been fooled. In order to avoid appearing “intolerant” or “backwards” we have agreed to ignore a myriad of obvious truths, such as, “Babies in the womb are human” or “The birth control pill causes cancer” or “God exists”. Even when a seemingly endless array of scientific data, research, and theories prove these things and many others- we continue to ignore the obvious, because we want to be tolerant. We want to be open- minded. It’s like we are pretending the Law of Gravity doesn’t exist and everyone is moon walking all over the place to make it true. As if we ever really could.

Truth is objective. So lets try and find the truth instead of imagining it, for the sake of reason.

In honor of Memorial Day this week: (an excerpt taken from “America the Beautiful”)

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!