A recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast aired where his guest, Yellowstone Creator Taylor Sheridan, reminded us old enough to remember the very famous radio commentator Paul Harvey and a segment he aired April 3 of 1965.
It is to be noted Joe Rogan was just 2 years old when Harvey broadcast this opinion editorial so he seemed genuinely shocked. Harvey’s ABC syndicated radio show was titled “The Rest of the Story” and ran for 33 years. He always ended with his signature line, “Now you know…the rest of the story, Paul Harvey… Good day.”
“Did 1965’s ‘If I Were the Devil’ PROPHESY America’s Downfall? | Joe Rogan Experience”
Transcript
“If I were the Devil . . . if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would want to engulf the whole earth in darkness and I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, THEE. So I would set about however necessary to take over the United States.
I’d subvert the churches first. I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, ‘Do as you please.’ To the young, I would whisper that the Bible is a myth. I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what’s bad is good, and what is good is ‘square’ (an expression of the time that meant irrelevant). And the old I would teach to pray after me. ‘Our Father, which art in Washington…’.
And then I would get organized I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could, I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction, and I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.
If I were the devil, I’d soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves until each in its turn was consumed. And, with promises of higher ratings, I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.
If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions, just let those run wild… Until, before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door. Within a decade I’d have prisons overflowing, I’d have judges promoting pornography, soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from Congress. And in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money.
If I were the devil, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And what will you bet I could get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich?
I would caution against extremes in hard work, in patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun. That what you see on TV is the way to be and thus I could undress you in public and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure.
In other words, if I were the devil, I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.”
CONCLUSION:
There is so much chatter these days on the speculation that America’s days are numbered. Some would say it is concerning if not outright frightening. Just recently I wrote a piece that reflected on an event dating back to 1963.
“This Experiment in Communism Ends this November!”
Now I am offering Paul Harvey’s words of 1965 as a reminder thanks to both Joe Rogan and his guest Taylor Sheridan. I was 11 years old and raised in the church so I was old enough to hear this when it originally aired and understood what every word meant, though I did not yet understand some of the sexual references between clergy and children back then. Harvey lived in by Chicago where one set of my grandparents lived and my father grew up so Paul Harvey was a local hero to us and not just a faceless national hero of the radio.
“Paul Harvey Like You’ve Never Seen Him!”
Paul Harvey (Aurandt) lived just outside of Chicago in Oak Park River Forest, Illinois but he also had retreats both in Missouri, where he grew up, and Arizona. Both of his retreats had their own radio studios. Near the end of his career in November of 2000 Harvey signed a 10-year $100 million contract with ABC Radio Networks. He passed away in 2009.
What Paul Harvey was trying to remind all of us relates directly to a passage of the Bible so relevant today:
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” – Isaiah 5:20–21
Is America in decline? I don’t know.
I do know that when society punishes the innocent while releasing the guilty it collapses soon thereafter as chaos and anarchy create disorder which can lead to an uprising.
Copyright © 2023 by Mark S. Schwendau
