By David Hegg Recently, I had an engaging afternoon conversation with a young businesswoman who had just returned home after a successful managerial position in Europe. As we were talking about the changes she has noticed in our culture and national conversations, she asked a simple question: “At what point …?”   Of course, her question was really a statement arguing that, at some point, Americans need to wake up to the toxins being spewed all over us by those manipulating our most important resource: the truth.  So, with the due acknowledgment that this column flows out of our conversation, understand that my intent here is to ask questions designed to detox your conscience by asking you … at what point do we say the emperor has no clothes, enough is enough, and we’re not going to put up with it anymore?  At what point do we shout that we’re through listening to personal attacks and demand policy presentations that show what can be done, how to do it, and the justifiable results?  At what point do we denounce cancel culture and reaffirm the wisdom of disagreeing agreeably?   At what point do we proclaim that tolerance, which assumes differences exist, is an essential ingredient in civil society?   At what point do we stop choosing leaders based on who we’d rather go to lunch with and start demanding that leadership be entrusted only to those who have lived with integrity, worked with excellence, and demonstrated an ability to bring about beneficial results?  Most of all, at what point do we refuse to accept the propaganda of those who are attempting to change our culture and our lives by commandeering our language?  For example, it is common parlance today to hear leaders boasting they are zealous to protect “reproductive freedom” for women. Yet, we all know this is just Orwellian doublespeak for the right to have an abortion.   Let’s think about it. Those who pursue getting an abortion are living, breathing examples of reproductive freedom. They have already demonstrated their freedom by reproducing a human life that is now safely nestled in the womb. The truth is that the phrase “reproductive freedom” has been commandeered to mean the exact opposite of the actual definition of the words being used. “Reproductive freedom” is propaganda that champions the power to “de-produce” what has already been produced. What is being championed is “de-productive freedom,” and no amount of polishing can obscure that horrible reality.   And we also hear abortion labeled as “health care.” But how healthy is it when a beating human heart is intentionally stopped? And how healthy is it when those who choose abortion too often sustain ongoing physical and emotional challenges?   At what point do we stand up and say truth matters? At what point do we demand that scientific DNA-based evidence is what defines gender as male and female?  At what point do we demand that our government stop printing money, fueling inflation, and raising the national debt to the place where, according to Forbes, our quarterly interest on that debt has reached $1 trillion?  At what point do we look at our fellow Americans of every race, creed and political view as neighbors to be loved rather than enemies to be destroyed?  At what point do we acknowledge that we have allowed fear and hate to become daily emotions due to the ingesting of too much slanted, biased and distorted news?  At what point do we push back against those who have drained “privilege, equality and diversity” of their full range of meaning and inserted their own ideas that masquerade as positive while creating animosity and division in our cities?  At what point do we stop believing that truth depends on an individual’s desires? At what point do we stop accepting the premise that reality is malleable? That 2 + 2 =  … well, whatever you want it to be?   At what point do we open our eyes and realize potent enemies are watching as we erode our own culture, weaken our unity, and open the doors to ideologies that have ruined other civilizations, all in the name of progress?  And, at what point do we realize that having banished God and faith and morality and love of neighbor to the margins of our lives, and for many, all the way off the page, we are not better off individually or as a people?  We’re at that point, if not already past it. I hope that enough of us will search our hearts, calm the fears that bring out the worst in us, and seek to be useful in the invisible war in which we are all engaged, whether we like it or not. Seek the truth, believe the truth, and hold fast to the truth, and then winsomely yet courageously fight to defend the truth as the only way life can have meaning and purpose.   America deserves better, and it begins in your heart and mine, in our love for one another and our love for God and country.   Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.  The post David Hegg | At What Point? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.