Two Truths

“Everything faded into mist.  The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.

               -George Orwell, 1984

I look about me and think to myself that maybe, in today’s world, there is not one, but two truths that are trying to but cannot coexist.  At least, while likely not true for universal truths, it seems that people are willing to adjust their definition of daily truths to one that coincides with their wishes and desires.

We often like to say: look at the facts, the evidence, because it cannot lie.  And while that is true, it may not necessarily be the truth of our daily life.  For some, truth is absolute realism.  Picture a painting of a table on which stands a wilted bouquet of flowers.  That may be what indeed a photograph would capture at that moment. 

Now picture the same painting but with a glorious and bountiful bouquet of freshly blooming flowers.  The painter may be thinking that if he tends to his garden, that will be the bouquet that he can paint next week.  It does not exist today, but for him it absolutely exists in the future and hence is part of his truth today.

Early in the Soviet era writer Maxim Gorky counseled a young writer that it is not enough to say “I wrote the truth.”  Rather, the author must ask himself two questions:  Which truth? and Why?  At that time Gorky was referring to the truth of pre-revolutionary Russia versus the truth of what Russia was becoming.

Much the same may be going on in today’s America.  Those who would have America remain true to her core values and the Constitution see truth as the descriptions, facts, and evidence that are true to that America and the traditional beliefs/values of its population.  Those who are looking for great social change see truth in the picture they paint of what we can be and are becoming.  To them it is true that a person can choose their gender or shift it as they please, resulting in statements such as “men can become pregnant”, a statement which is factually and scientifically inaccurate and thus not a truth to the realists, but something which those trying to recreate a future see as a realistic future truth and hence a truth to them today.

Obviously, these opposing truths and many others cannot coexist.  Laws are affixed to one reality.  Opposing truths result in opposing laws or just anarchy.  Education – its needs, goals, and how to achieve them – is similarly at odds.  How one manages everything, from the food one puts on one’s plate to international relations, suffers.  The concept of opposing truths is currently on full display in the reactions to the terrorist attacks on Israel:  those whose truth is the factual history of the region are in opposition to those whose truth is the factually inaccurate but desired narrative that Israel is a guilty oppressor.

If the revolutionaries (and that is perhaps a good term for the progressive Left and its truth) prevail, then their narrative which is their truth, while not the reality of today, will become the reality of tomorrow.

That might not be so if we retain a pathway to current and past truths of this country and its values, accomplishments, and failures.  But if they are not retained, even if only as part of history, then they will be lost, and the revolutionary truths will be the only truths.

Interestingly, some would argue that part of the reason for the fall of Soviet Russia is that it retained and revered its prerevolutionary classics.   The works of the great Russian authors – Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, etc. – retained a picture of the prerevolutionary reality and the values it conveyed, values that were in direct opposition to Communism.  At least some have traced the intellectual force behind Gorbachev’s glasnost to be the youthful reading of Russia’s great literature.  “The Bolsheviks did not realize that by having their children read Tolstoy…they were digging the grave of their revolution.” (Slezkine, The House of Government, quoted in Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty).

Perhaps today’s Progressive Left learned from that Bolshevik mistake.  Perhaps it is for that reason that they feel the need to cancel and destroy anything that represents the past and current truth of America and how they justify their openly asserted belief that free speech must be canceled.  If there is no other truth, then their revolutionary truth that is yet to be can become the only truth. 

The analogy is not completely misplaced because for the Progressive Left, the destruction and reimagining of America is as obsessive a cause as was the Russian revolution to the Bolsheviks.  As the Russian people discovered, when the revolutionary lie becomes the truth then the reality is not that of the glorious utopian vision, but a very ugly existence. 

But the Russian people had access to their past truth, a truth that was actually more real than that within which they lived.  If today’s Progressive Left Cancel Culture has its way, we and future generations will not have that access.  We will not know what else was and could have been, and our truth will be as hollow as the unachievable dream narratives of the Progressives.

Like Gorky we must ask: Which truth and Why?  The truth that has been America for 247 years, or the truth that the Progressive Left believes will become the new truth.  A vision is not a truth but a narrative dream.  America’s truth is fading into the mist.  We must not allow America’s truth to be erased and the Left’s revolutionary dream to become a nightmare of false truth.

(Image AI Generated in response to prompt “Two Truths in Opposition")

Facts Don’t Matter, Not Even To The President

So, we had the Chauvin verdict.  Rather than seeing that verdict as justice served – a trial, a jury, a verdict – and time for healing, the President continued racial divisiveness by asserting that this is not over, and again proclaiming systemic racism and making other statements that sound more like anti-American propaganda than what should be coming from America’s President and from someone who continues to say he wants unity.

The Chauvin trial was not about race.   The prosecution did not mention race.  It was a murder trial plain and simple.  Yet, led by the President, the country ignores that fact and makes it about race and the Left’s current favorite cause:  eradicating the illusive systemic racism.

Now we have a police shooting in Ohio.  The 911 call included the words, “It's these grown girls over here trying to fight us, trying to stab us, get here now!"   A large teen girl holding a knife and attacking another teen was shot by police, thus saving the life of the teenager being attacked.  Sounds to me like it might be a police officer doing his job, protecting and serving.

What do we hear from the media, from the Left, and sadly from our President?    We first ignore the fact that the person shot was armed with a deadly weapon and in the process of using it against another human being.  NBC omitted the above words from the 911 call.   We ignore the fact that the officer saved someone from a violent and quite possibly deadly attack. 

What do we focus on?  The attacker whom the officer shot was Black.  So, that apparently makes it a racist and unjustifiable shooting no matter what the circumstances, proof of the alleged systemic racism that seems to now be the cause of any and everything that displeases the Left.

Did I (and others) not say that the Chauvin verdict was only the beginning?  The fact that, again led by our President, America misunderstood what a trial is and made the murder trial of Derek Chauvin instead some sort of trial of all of America has empowered the anti-police oratory.  The verdict which addressed the actions of one man is proclaimed by the President and others to be a verdict on America itself. 

Led by the President, much of America seems to think that verdict justifies anti-police rhetoric if not violence, as well as any number of statutes, rules, and regulations creating any number of actions that will allegedly rectify the “systemic racism” that they assert the Chauvin verdict proclaimed. 

This allows any member of the public to second guess a police officer’s actions in the heat of a violent and dangerous situation.  It allows the public to take bits and pieces of information about police action and use it to justify their narrative, even if the full factual picture does not support that narrative.  It means that any police officer who takes action that the mob, led by the President, does not like, is subject to condemnation by both the President and the mob. 

It means that any police officer now must not only be thinking about protecting the people he serves, but also be fearful that if the action he takes, even if justified, may result in threats and charges of murder against him.  And, led by the President, if that officer is charged with murder simply for doing his job it will be perfectly OK to threaten the jury via protests and rioting.

Contrary to the President and the mob beliefs, every action in this country is not about race.  It may be convenient to say that it is because it allows the President, the Left, and certain interest groups to push through their agendas claiming they are all about correcting systemic racism.  Anyone who opposes those agendas is simply disregarded as racist. 

The fact that there are more Whites than Blacks killed by police (both numerically and proportionately) or that some Black criminal offenders are killed by Black police officers are facts that don’t seem to matter.   The fact that some killing of Blacks by police are justifiable and happen in the course of the police officer carrying out his duties are facts that don’t matter.  The fact that many police shootings of Blacks have nothing to do with race but rather simply involve violations of criminal statutes or failure to obey police commands during a criminal stop are facts that don’t matter.  

We used to be a country that cared about Truth.  Facts are a part of Truth.  But now it seems we care not about Truth but Narrative.  Facts that do not fit a narrative are simply dismissed.   Any thought that is different from that approved by the President’s administration and the mob is dismissed.

Here is an apt description of our country today: “It is a system without an independent press; a system without an independent judiciary; where the people have no influence either on external or internal policy; where any thought which is different from the state is crushed.” 

Both sad and chilling is that the above quote comes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn describing Soviet Russia.   And so now you know where we are headed as we become a nation of narrative rather than facts.  

Another quote of relevance comes from Aldous Huxley: “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”  You will recall that amongst the books authored by Huxley is Brave New World, another prescient view of where our elevation of narrative over fact is leading us.

Facts do matter.  Truth does matter.  And a President who is willing to ignore them, to choose to push a narrative even when that narrative is proven to be false, certainly does not have in mind or heart the best interests of the Country and Constitution he has sworn to protect.  And a country that allows this to happen, that simply falls into place as told, is in the process of destroying itself.

It’s So Much More Than Just the Biden Coverup

By now you are (or should be) aware of the fact that the press conveniently ignored and suppressed the Hunter Biden investigation until after the election.  Now, when the result is fairly certain, they begin to report it, though generally with the best spin possible. 

We should all be appalled about their coverup, but the concern goes or should go far beyond that.  Anyone who does not believe their vote this election was at least in part manipulated by the media is dreaming.  But, beyond vote manipulation, we should all be concerned about the way that more generally our thinking is being manipulated.    

        The Hunter Biden Affair
First, a quick recap of the Hunter Biden affair. If you are not inclined to research the actual documents, two current opinion pieces present the key facts fairly objectively and I will quote from them in this summary. They are from the Wall Street Journal LINK-HERE  and The Hill LINK-HERE 

If you only read the mainstream Left media or get your news from social media, you probably don’t remember when the Biden story broke last October.  The New York Post published an exclusive story about Hunter Biden being under investigation.  There was a laptop and incriminating email from and to Hunter including about arranging a meeting between his father Joe and executives of the Ukrainian oil company with which his father may have used his influence when he was Vice President.  There are texts and witness statements from people close to Biden. 

The story’s sources were verified.  Here is what happened to that story:  It and any reference to it was banned from Twitter and accounts were locked down; other media outlets and all Democrats simply and immediately dismissed it as either Russian disinformation or a smear campaign by Trump and the Republicans. 

Here is what some of the more popular “news” outlets said:

Politico: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”;
CNN: “The anatomy of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story.”;
Washington Post: “The truth behind the Hunter Biden non-scandal”;
New York Times: “Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It: Inside the White House’s secret, last-ditch effort to change the narrative, and the election — and the return of the media gatekeepers.”;
Taxpayer-funded NPR: "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. And we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions."

Leslie Stahl interviewed President Trump for 60 minutes and here is a portion of that interview relating to the Biden story:

Stahl (response when Trump brought up the topic): “This is the most important issue in the country right now?” 
Trump: “It’s a very important issue to find out whether a man’s corrupt who’s running for president, who’s accepted money from China, and Ukraine, and from Russia. . . .Take a look at what’s going on, Leslie, and you say that shouldn’t be discussed? I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen, and you don’t cover it.”
Stahl: “Well, because it can’t be verified.  I’m telling you —”
Trump: “Of course it can be verified.  Excuse me, Leslie, they found a laptop…”
Stahl: “It can’t be verified.”

As the Hill article notes, “Well, it's difficult to verify anything when you don't bother to check under the hood in the first place, right? Because that's exactly what happened here, except that the cake was baked with a condemnation of the few who decided to pursue the story.”

None of these responses should surprise us.  Before the NY Post Story, there were earlier reports that Hunter’s position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Bursima was tied to improper influence by his then Vice President father Joe.  The media chose to ignore this along with Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, the chairmen of investigating Senate committees who in September released a joint report detailing some of Hunter’s million-dollar dealings with politically connected foreigners. The report said they raised “serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns relating to Hunter Biden and his family.” And as the WSJ states, the press merely “yawned.”

But now, the election is over, Hunter admitted that he is under investigation, and the story can no longer be ignored (although, the press is putting the best spin possible on it to make it as innocuous as possible for presumptive president-elect Biden).

            Omission Bias
There was widespread omission bias by the media and big tech.  Omission bias is “when an outlet or publication purposely suppresses or outright ignores a newsworthy story that is carried by others.”  In this case the story carrier was the NY Post and the suppressing (actually outright banning) outlets were the rest of the media.      

The Hill piece notes “There are two kinds of bias in the media. First there is the kind we regularly see from many – not all – outlets in broad daylight, which includes openly rooting for one political party while echoing rapid-response opposition research against another. And then there is the more invisible, insidious variety — the bias of omission.”

Clearly, the Hunter problem is a clear example of this insidious bias.  But it is not in any way the only example.  For four years we have had the worst spin possible put on anything that President Trump did while any achievements were either downplayed or ignored.  Ask those who get their news from the mainstream or social media or late-night TV.  They never heard about Trump’s criminal justice reform, about his peace accords in the Middle East, about his work to improve the economic status of minorities or to preserve funding for Black colleges.  They don’t know the positive effects that his re-negotiated trade agreements had for American businesses.  And the positives that they have heard about are couched in such things as:  the previous administration set up the ability for him to do this or that; despite a litany of negatives, he did one small thing; etc.  They still believe that the Obama border cages did not exist before Trump took office. 

The political bias is clear and it is indeed a bias of omission rather than just spin.  That is dangerous because without facts, with a preconceived narrative presented to us, we are bound within the facts of the particular narrative being presented.  Our views are being bent to fit within someone else’s narrative.

That should anger us.  And not just because the press is not doing its job of presenting us with fair and unbiased facts.  It should anger us because it means that they are trying to change, create, and determine the way that we think about issues or people.

That the press creates a narrative for us means that they are attempting to manipulate and mold our thinking, and that should be of deep concern to every American.

               The Manipulation goes beyond Political Viewpoint
Not just the news, but everywhere around us our freedom of thought is being interfered with if not obstructed. The Academy Awards now require certain identity qualifications for actors and staff.  Try to get a grant in any of the arts without having a “social justice” aspect to your work.  LeBron James was awarded Time’s athlete of the year because of his activism (I don’t deny that he is a great athlete, but that goes unmentioned in this “athletic” award). 

The political correctness and thought control goes beyond popular entertainments.  People are fired for speaking their mind if it is not in agreement with the appropriate political correctness.  A doctor had his license revoked after giving a view of COVID precautions that was not that of the mainstream.  A medical professor at Harvard expressed the more widespread danger of this sort of action to science generally:  science requires that people question; when questioning is silenced, when people become afraid to speak out, then science cannot progress.  Nor can anything else.

In Russia following the revolution the Communists created a series of 5-year plans to lead the country more and more toward socialism.  Contrary to popular belief, these plans were not just industrial or manufacturing goals.  They also governed things like the arts, media, and most every aspect of life.  The goal was to create a new type of human being, to turn the individual into a communist, a communal being that was little more than an automaton for the State.  The individual voice was no longer welcome and everything the people did, read, watched, or interacted with was designed to display the (often false) positivity and beauty of communism and the proper behavior of the communist.

So, when the media commits acts of omission and when it presents clear positive bias for its narrative and negative bias against those who disagree, when the arts present only one view of life as that which should be lived and strived for, when athletics become about how good an activist (for the right cause) rather than athlete you are, when you cease questioning either because you are afraid to or simply not allowed to, when these things happen, remember this:  media can change your thinking, remold who you are.  The Soviets tried it, and it worked for 75 years. But those 75 years were far from the utopia that the people were told it was.

We live in dangerous times.  This is a post-truth America.  I’d like to think that those whose votes were manipulated this election cycle will wake up when they see the bait and switch that occurred.  I doubt they will because the media will continue to hide what is inconvenient to its narrative.  More dangerous is the media, film, music, entertainment generally that is with us 24/7.  That and the social shunning of those who question or disagree. 

We are definitely being manipulated and the danger is that we end up losing ourselves.  Stay alert.  Keep questioning.  And most importantly, think for yourself.

 

What Prevents Civil Discourse

 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you know that this is pretty much what political discussions sound like these days.  No facts, no explanations of factual interpretations, just name calling and lies.

To be clear, if the disagreement is about facts alone, then only one can be correct.   The other may be lying, or simply misinformed, or without a thorough factual investigation.  However, if the disagreement is about one’s viewpoint or opinions, or factual interpretations that support those opinions, then neither can be absolutely correct, and neither can be lying.

And herein lies a key problem with today’s political (as well as other) discourse.  We seem no longer able to distinguish facts from opinions.

Facts are what they are and we cannot change them.  We can often interpret them in more than one way and can use them to support more than one viewpoint.  But interpretations, opinions, viewpoints are not facts and cannot be lies.  They can be based on lies, but they themselves are individual interpretations and in this country we are allowed to have our own opinions. 

This is why the distinction between fact and opinion is so important.  It is also why, until we can once again make that distinction, that our discourse will never return to the civility that once was and will instead continue to look like the above cartoon.

We also are living in a post-fact world where one’s feelings, hopes, desires – their narrative – rather than facts seem to be the “reality” that many prefer. Although living in a post fact world we still interact as if we were not, as if we were living in a reality governed by facts. 

Yet, in today’s times the narrative, not the fact is king.  For many today, if one believes something to be true, because it is their narrative, then it is so.  Inconvenient facts that do not fit one’s narrative are often ignored, and the bearer of those difficult facts is called a liar or worse and often silenced.

While issues can and often do have more than one viewpoint and more than one reasonable solution, we have gone beyond tolerance of opposing viewpoints to a belief that there can be only one.  That one is the one that one’s own controlling narrative says is the one.

We have confused fact with narrative and while someone certain of their facts can claim to be right and try to silence incorrect factual presentations, one cannot attempt to silence other narratives than their own.    To do so is to confuse reality with one’s own opinion or hope or emotional experience or other unverifiable information.  This confusion is not only present in today’s uncivil discourse, we see it all around us.

If one wants to check oneself and one’s beliefs against reality, against actual and complete facts, where do they go to find those facts?  Because it is only with a complete picture of the facts relevant to an issue that one can form an honest opinion about that issue.  And it is those real and complete facts that allow one to build arguments in support of their preferred resolution to the issue and then build a real world narrative based on those facts.

Today one has to spend hours going from news site to news site to try to ferret out the actual and full picture of any issue.  The line between news and opinion and propaganda has become so blurred that one must at a minimum check at least one source from every aspect of the political spectrum.  This takes a lot of time and few are able or willing to spend that necessary time on this task.  Others still have a sadly misfounded belief that they can trust their usual news source to give them a full and unbiased report.

The press currently fails us in its responsibility to report unbiased facts.  The many forms of media bombarding us 24 hours a day are mostly there to entertain and to make a profit, not to provide us with a fair and unbiased report of some occurrence.  Those who seek power are able to take advantage of the medias’ failings and of our confusion or ignorance of them.

This leaves the two political sides to each create their own story and assert that narrative as true.  And the supporters of each side are often more than willing to accept that narrative on face value and call those who don’t agree liars and disrupters.

I was recently told that this is a partisan world and how dare I take a partisan view (with which the speaker disagreed) and therefore further the partisanship.  There was a time when people with differing opinions could present them, question one another and discuss those views.  Unless we have the state mandating what we think we will always have a partisan or multi-opinionated society.  That is not a bad thing.  It is how we learn and grow and move forward.

Compounding the problem of inability to distinguish fact and opinion is the fact that the two political parties and their followers seem to have two very different and indeed opposing opinions of this country’s past, present, and future. 

These two distinct views of America cannot coexist in any unified form.  There are those, mostly on the Right, who generally like and believe in America as she currently exists.  While accepting her faults and working to correct them, they believe that the country and form of government created by our Constitution and developed over the last 240 plus years is good.  They do not believe it is static or that it should be so, but they do believe that it is worth preserving and changes to it should occur within its proven systems, governmental institutions, and Constitutional provisions.

The Left’s view, in contrast, paints a negative picture of America as she currently exists.  People holding this view do not think of America as a good country, they do not believe in her system of government and actually they do not trust the people to make the decisions about themselves and their country that our Constitution allows.  Many holding this view believe that problems in America’s systems should not be repaired or improved, but rather that the entire structure of America should be dismantled and completely rebuilt in a manner that conforms to their vision of what she should be.

The Left’s vision for a future America is unclear.  Like Obama’s promise of “hope and change”, no one can or will really articulate what the Left’s vision means – what it will look like in the larger picture;  instead it holds a different form in each believer’s heads.  (And this is the problem with narrative when it is not tied to actual and specific facts.)

We can, generally, distinguish the restructured view of America from that which currently exists.  It far more resembles socialism than anything we have today.  It includes a large government and would allow those in power to make many and significant decisions over the individual lives of the citizenry. 

Each side feels very strongly about its view.  The belief in a governmental system is far more deeply seated and passionate than a position on this or that issue; it affects the individual’s entire world and the world of their future generations.  It is not a wonder that passions are elevated when one is talking about their view for their very existence.

Both sides often assert the other is destroying the country.  Indeed, each really believes this.  But the destruction that the Left sees is often more a destruction of their narrative than an actual destruction of what in reality exists.   When the President does not do what the Left wishes he would, when his actions conform to our laws and our Constitution, he is not destroying the country; rather, his political positions,  policies, and opinions are not those of the Left and their narrative. 

Interestingly, this country, in its current form and with its current Constitution gives the Left legal and civil processes to challenge actions they do not like.  But in the Left’s narrative world, rather than follow these processes, their remedies are to break faith with the Constitution and do such things as silence the opposition, interfere with the administration’s performance of its Constitutional duties, and look to some form of mob rule for a remedy.  Their narrative allows – indeed they believe it mandates – that they do this.

This is what happens when narrative clashes with fact, or narrative with narrative.  There can be no civil discourse nor can there be a civil resolution because the rules are different depending upon on which side of the divide one stands. 

We have always had partisanship in this country as any free people should, but our debates were based on shared rules and an understanding of the difference between fact and opinion.  We were all playing by the same rules.  

Only when we once again respect the reality of facts and are able to distinguish factual reality from narrative will we be able to find our way back to some sort of civil discourse and debate and with that a way forward from the anger and hate that surrounds us today.

 

Don’t Fall for It, Part 3

“Russian Collusion” didn’t work.  “He’s a Racist” isn’t working.  So, now the media, spokes-machine for the anti-Trumpers and the Left, is pushing a “coming recession” as a way to keep President Trump from being re-elected.  Don’t fall for it.

The Democrats and their handmaiden the mainstream media love to float theories about President Trump and his administration that have no, or at best very weak, factual support.  They repeat their subversive allegations and accusations over and over, both directly (“Trump is a racist”) and more subtly in a way that presents as a fact that supports their message something that has not yet been proven  (for example, “Trump’s racist statement”  when there is no evidence other than the media’s biased interpretation that the statement being referred to is indeed racist).  The Left seems to subscribe to the theory that if you repeat something enough times, then the people will believe that it is true.

This repetition of an unproven and often false narrative is a key tool of propaganda as well as useful in brainwashing.  The media selectively presents facts in a way that make them sound as if they are proof of the narrative they are promoting.  They love to characterize opinion as fact and then use that “fact” to condemn the President. 

This is really not that different from what conspiracy theorists do.  “A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful actors, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.”  One seeking a conspiracy, or simply a narrative that condemns the President, will re-interpret objective evidence in a way that omits any fact or rational interpretation that counters the proposed narrative.  When there is no actual evidence to support the conspiracy or the narrative, what does exist will be re-interpreted as evidence of the truth of the narrative so that the conspiracy or the narrative “becomes a matter of faith rather than proof.”

And isn’t that just what we see happening among the Democrats and the media.  They have a narrative that the President is some sort of Russian agent, a racist, etc. and they will continue to ignore actual facts and instead continue to repeat their narrative.   They don't give up their belief in Russian collusion despite a thorough investigation to the contrary.  It has become a matter of faith rather than fact.

Similarly, the Left continues to put forth the now clearly debunked narrative that after Charlottesville the President said the Nazis were good people even though the actual tape of his statement shows that while he did indicate that there were good people on both sides who were there simply to protest about the Robert E. Lee statue, he then continued with the following words that persist in being completely omitted from the Left’s narrative:  “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

But more insidious even than such outright omissions that fully change the reality of a situation is the Left’s use of basic persuasive and propaganda techniques to subtly present as true fact something for which there is no evidence or no proof.  How many times do we hear a statement about Trump begin “Trump’s racist words…” or “Trump’s offensive statement…” or “Trump’s disruptive act…”, etc.  The speaker is stating as facts that words or statements or actions are as negatively labeled.  Yet, that is nothing more than the speaker’s opinion, it is not a proven fact. 

Likewise, we hear over and over that the President’s purpose in enforcing immigration laws and putting an end to illegal immigration is one of promoting white supremacy.  There is no actual proof of that; it is simply the assumption of those whose hateful narrative about the President includes labeling him as a white supremacist. Yet, if the negative labels are repeated often enough it is likely that they become accepted as the fact that is necessary to prove the speaker’s narrative.

Now, I do not know if there will be some sort of economic collapse if the President is re-elected.  Actually, I believe it is much more likely that our booming economy will go bust if a Democrat becomes president.  But, that is my opinion, just as the Left’s new economic anti-Trump rhetoric is nothing more than their latest theory – their new narrative in their war on Trump. 

Like other conspiracy theorists, the Left’s narrative is more a matter of faith than of proof.  You do not have to join their cult.  Demand proof.  Listen carefully to their words.  Ask questions.  Find the full story – the full, complete, and actual narrative, not the fictional presentation of those who have their own agenda.  Do not simply fall for what they tell you, no matter how many times they repeat it.

Points of View Are Not Facts; We Need Both and We Need to Understand the Difference

Apparently during a meeting at the White House about funding for the wall last Wednesday, the following interchange took place:

Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “I reject your facts”

Nielsen to Pelosi: “These aren’t my facts.  These are the facts.”

If people are unwilling to acknowledge, let alone accept given facts, then how can we ever have a discussion, let alone resolve differences or solve important issues?

Unless we wish to discuss apples and oranges as if they were the same thing, we must be willing to accept facts – things that provably exist.  That is not to say that we must have the same opinions of those facts, but we must all begin discussions of issues with an acceptance of those things that simply are.  Then we can express differing opinions about those facts and their significance to the particular issue that we are discussing.  It is during that presentation of differing views that we have the opportunity to learn from those who seem to disagree with us.  It is that sort of discussion that allows differing sides to move forward to a compromise of or solution to their disagreement, a solution that might change for the better facts that exist in the future.

But, if we are unwilling to accept given and provable facts, if, instead of arguing about their significance, we choose to dispute the indisputable, we are unlikely to move forward.  If we dispute pure facts themselves, then the dispute is essentially some version of "I am right and you are wrong" and each side simply tries to convert the other side to their “facts”; when the conversion does not occur, the conversation ends.  There is no solution to such a dispute.

However, if we begin by accepting the provable and certain facts, then we can evaluate those facts from differing viewpoints and perspectives.  We can accept the relevant facts on an issue and also the fact that differing experiences often lead people to interpret facts differently.  That is the beginning of a rational discussion and hopefully a rational resolution to a problem. 

Here’s a quick example.  Let’s say I run a stop sign, and there is no dispute about the location of the stop sign or a nearby tree, that I ran through the stop, and (we are assuming I’m truthful here) that I assert I did not see the sign.  Those are facts.  What we might dispute is whether, given the location of the sign and the tree, I should have seen it, or, whether the city should have placed the stop sign in a more visible location.  Those are interpretations of the basic indisputable fact of the sign’s location.  But if we spend our time disputing where the stop sign was located or if there really was a tree located near it, etc., then we will never get to a resolution of issues such as whether I should pay for damage I caused by running the sign or whether the city should move the sign or trim the tree that may have blocked it.

So, when we discuss immigration, there are certain facts that, while we might not like them, are indisputable.  Things like the numbers of illegals in this country; the numbers crossing our border both legally and illegally, the numbers in custody; the numbers of children; that some are criminals; that some families are separated at the border; that border agents have rescued aliens and that some aliens have died in our custody; that sanctuary cities protect aliens from ICE; that there are a variety of reasons why migrants seek to enter America, both legally and illegally.  These and many other facts can be specifically supported with statistics and other evidence.  Similarly, the laws and their requirements can easily be read.  These are all facts.  If we are going to actually have a productive dialog about immigration, then we must accept the facts that exist – all the facts, whether they further our argument or not -  and discuss their significance to our country in light of varying views and interpretations of those facts.  We can try to understand those views that differ from ours and try to persuade those who hold them to perhaps see some of the facts from our perspective instead. 

But, if we are going to reject those actual facts that don’t support our position, if we are going to turn facts we don’t like into something refutable that belong to the other side of our issue, then any attempts at discussion must go nowhere.  Facts, indisputable evidence, is not something about which we can rationally disagree.  And so statements such as that made by Speaker Pelosi are simply a way of blocking any rational discussion of the immigration issue. 

We can have both facts and points of view on an issue.  Indeed, that is what our democracy relies upon – an acceptance and encouragement of diverse voices on an issue as we move forward to correct problems related to provable facts.  But, we can’t make up the facts.  We can’t choose which facts to accept.  The facts simply are.  It is the picking and choosing of facts to make up a narrative pleasing to one side or another and then an assertion that only that narrative is correct, that creates the impossible animosity that grips our country today.

It is easy to assert that our views are facts.  But, simply, they are not.  And, until people can accept that fact, until they can distinguish the two, there is little hope for resolution to issues and much likelihood of continuing hostility toward, instead of tolerance of, those holding differing views.

Why I’m Not Writing About Today’s Indictments

Plenty of people will be busy putting their spin on the Manafort indictment.  Unlike those involved in the investigation who are under an obligation of secrecy but leak anyway, I have no obligation to keep quiet.  Yet, I see no point in rehashing the facts because people will read, misread, omit, distort, or whatever as they choose in order to use the current developments to support their own narrative. 

So, this will be very short, with just a few comments/questions:

 1.   I thought that the “investigation” was a hunt to find collusion between Trump and the Russians that affected the 2016 election.  If so, why is the indictment for alleged crimes committed at the latest in 2015 and before?

 2.  Why did Mueller suddenly ramp up and indict when the news was coming out of his possible involvement in the Clinton uranium deal (possible scandal) and his connection with Comey and the FBI and its use of the DNC ordered & paid for dossier on Trump (possible connection with Russia to affect election!)?

 3.  If Mueller’s investigation has this broad latitude to go hunting far beyond and outside of the 2016 election, why is he not investigating the many questionable actions that occurred during the Obama administration or at the hand of Obama’s some or one-time affiliates?

 4.  How can the left possibly read today’s news to justify headlines such at: “Information proves Trump campaign tried to collude with Russia”?

 5.  Why do the democrats continue to insist upon creating a narrative in which Trump is not a legitimate president?

 6.  How long and with what power will this “investigation” continue?

The far broader question can be simply stated:  Why do people jump to conclusions without examining or understanding the facts, or asking necessary questions?  Or, put another way:  Why do people insist that their preferred narrative is fact, whether or not facts can or do indeed support it?  Why cannot people be honest with themselves and others and admit that things are not always the way they wish them to be, but that simply wishing them to be so does not make them so, nor does it justify recreating factual reality in order to support their own narrative?

Perhaps rather than gloating at how today’s (or any day’s) news supports one’s preferred narrative we would all be better suited by stepping back and taking a breath and understanding what the facts really say and what reality really is.