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.

Question Two

This is the second in a series of important questions that I hope everyone will consider before they cast their vote for President of the United States of America this fall.

How many institutions that are a regular part of your life are you willing to relinquish to a political agenda that may or may not be your own?

Here is a partial list of traditional institutions, both public and private, that are now, at least in part, serving a Leftist political agenda:

• Public K-12 Schools
• Institutions of Higher Learning
• Entertainment Industry
• Professional Sports
• Religious Doctrine
• Corporate Product Naming, Placement, Advertising
• Media
• The Arts
• Public Art
• Funding of Law Enforcement

Education has been leaning Left for several years now.  Indeed, the Marx-Lenin playbook points to education as the key to socialist indoctrination.  Abraham Lincoln was aware of the power (and potential danger) of education when he stated, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” 

In the past 2 or 3 generations, public schools as well as both public and private universities have become places where students focus less on purely academic subjects and more on social issues with a view towards indoctrinating students into someone else’s values and judgments about what is and what is not “social justice.”  It often does not stop there: often students are aggressively instructed about the causes they should take up. 

In Philadelphia, an English teacher at the Science Leadership Academy stated his concerns that “Conservative” parents might “listen in” or just overhear Zoom lessons and conversations this fall.  His “chief concern” is when teachers are engaging “in the messy work of destabilizing a kid’s racism or homophobia or transphobia.”  I am not sure why an English teacher should be “destabilizing” a child’s feelings, or automatically defining them as racist, homophobic or transphobic.  But that is one of many ways in which education now serves a Left agenda.

Similarly, the NEA in collaboration with the NY Times has developed a 1619 Project curriculum for schools, and some school districts have actually voted to adopt it.  The 1619 Project argues that this country was created not on the Fourth of July 1776, but on Aug. 20, 1619, the date when a ship carrying African slaves arrived in Virginia.  It requires placing Blacks at the very center of every aspect of this nation’s history, celebrating Black accomplishments while demeaning contributions of all others as nothing more than actions only made possible by Blacks.  It denounces the history of this country based on the Revolution, the Framers, and the Constitution as nothing more than racist and white supremacist.  Despite the fact that many historians have questioned the accuracy of the 1619 Project, it will be taught as history in many public schools this fall.   Consider this just another way of using education to promote a Leftist agenda.

Higher education is not exempt.  A Stockton University student is facing suspension for using a Zoom background with a picture of the President of the United States.  It allegedly caused other students “to feel offended, disrespected, and taunted” during class.  If found guilty the student will also be required to take a “social justice workshop” (reeducation camp), simply for displaying a photo of the President.  This certainly puts a chilling effect on any expression that is not Leftist approved. 

There are also any number of incidents of teachers and college professors being fired or in some other way disciplined and silenced when they speak out against a Leftist belief.  Offenses even include such things as forgetting to use a student’s preferred pronoun.  The Left agenda is alive and well and generally pulling the strings in higher education.

Looking at some of the other institutions on the list, the entertainment industry uses its productions to support Leftist causes.  TV and Movie productions often require placement of particular identity individuals:  interracial couples, homosexual characters or couples, leftist values, ridicule of conservative lifestyles, etc.  

Professional sports has now joined in as it supports the BLM movement (which, to be clear, is a political organization with Leftist ties and clear Leftist demands).  Players, now suddenly “woke”, wear “social justice” statements on their shirts and kneel for the National Anthem, as if either action would actually do anything, anything, that is, other than shove a specific political agenda in every sports fan's face. 

We all know that most of the mainstream media is the handmaiden of the Left.  It is a well-oiled propaganda machine.  Gone are the days when one could look to the media to give one the facts.  Now it is opinion stated as fact and then used as propaganda.  In order to discover the actual facts about a situation one must spend hours reading and cross-reviewing a great number of sources, something that most people do not have time, understanding, or resources to do.  

Corporations are also on board.  Social media censors items that are offensive to the Left agenda.  Corporations rename or remove products at the beck and call of the Left.  Those who refuse to do so are subject to boycotts or firings. 

Even some religious doctrine is modified to appease Left demands.  Sermons, youth activities, etc. may promote a specific political party’s agenda rather than that religion’s agenda which may or may not coincide with that of the political party.  Just as schools are places for academic instruction, not family value instruction in the form of a particular political agenda, places of worship should be for religious value instruction and worship, not promotion of a political agenda couched in the form of religious instruction.

The Arts also push certain agendas.  Grants to visual and performing artists often require some “social justice” aspect to the work.  The people’s art – public statues – are destroyed to advance the Left’s agenda.

And, finally, a word about law enforcement.  Local police forces are now falling under the control of the Leftist agenda as their funds are either removed or repurposed to social worker rather than law enforcement type personnel. 

There are other familiar institutions which have long been a part of our lives but that now belong not to us in the way that they once did but are rather already under or moving under the control of the Left.  The agenda is theirs; it is not ours, even if on some points we are inclined to agree. 

As the Left gains control over more and more of these many facets of our lives, as we relinquish these institutions to the Left to control, we lose more and more of who we are and instead become more and more of what the Left wants us to be.   These institutions that used to serve us for the purposes stated in their titles (education, entertainment, worship, etc.) are now being controlled more and more by the Left which pulls their strings sometimes with and sometimes without our conscious knowledge.  The frightening fact is that this Leftist control is becoming more and more prevalent and reaching into more and more aspects of our daily lives.

Is this acceptable to you?  If it is, then you are the voter and the tool that the Democrats seek.  If it is not, then you must stand up against this hijacking of what once were open and relatively unbiased institutions.  You must stand against relinquishing control of every aspect of your life to the Left.  One way to do that is to vote Republican this fall. 

                                 Be sure to consider who is pulling the strings.

Finally, as noted in “Question One” yesterday, I am not registered with any party, but as an independent thinker and voter I truly believe that this may be one of the most important elections of our lifetime.  I hope that everyone gives it the serious consideration that it deserves.