I Mistakenly Gave You My Friendship, and Now I’m Compelled to Take it From You

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedPolitics

Author’s note: This is an actual message that I sent to a friend – someone I had known for many years. I felt it important to share with LCR readers who may be experiencing similar struggles. The content of this message has been *lightly* edited to provide clarity for general readership.

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I have given this a great deal of thought, and I feel I must say this. I have always tried to do my best to be open-minded to other opinions. And I will continue to do so. But my willingness to listen to opposing sides was carelessly abused Wednesday evening. You saw fit to use my Facebook post decrying the violence and loss of life at the hands of a mob incited by the sitting president as an excuse to peddle conspiracy theories. The photos of “proof” you provided were doctored to make uninformed, gullible people believe that Antifa – not Trump supporters – were behind the insurrection at the Capitol on Wednesday.

The real proof – not hearsay (you claimed that your “reliable” friend provided this “proof”) – is that the people in the photos were all identified as well-known Trump supporters, some of them active in QAnon – a bastion of the most horrible, outlandish conspiracy theories I have ever had the misfortune to hear. These people saw fit to bypass legal and peaceful means to air their grievances, violently pushing themselves into the building – breaking through windows and doors, shoving through barricades, overpowering a Capitol Police officer to the point that he suffered fatal injuries, and forcing another officer to shoot a rioter – directly resulting in loss of human life. This wasn’t a protest. This wasn’t a righteous “Second American Revolution”, or “Second Civil War”. This was an attempted coup by a mob of closed-minded, disgruntled people who voluntarily chose to swallow Trump’s lies and cult of personality hook, line, and sinker, believing his persistent, baseless claims of a stolen election just because he said so. There is no PROOF. The EVIDENCE for my claim is the FACT that the vast majority of judges didn’t see even enough evidence to allow a case to be heard. The highest court in the land, packed of judges that Trump himself placed, ruled these claims to be baseless and without merit. The blindness of those who refuse to even see the proof boggles my mind.

We had known each other for years. I used to believe that you, living and working in Washington as an advocate for disabled Americans, were a level-headed, critical-thinking human being, who cared about truth and facts. I tolerated your meek argument that Trump “was a nice person”, based on a single personal meeting, without evaluating him beyond what mask he decided to wear on that day.

I invite you to reply to my post and apologize as soon as humanly possible for your mistake of promoting photographs that have been proven to be doctored with the intent to redirect blame. I would hope that you would have the self-awareness to accept the abundant facts refuting the photos you posted – and that you state so in public. 

My heart is broken for my country, for the people who were injured and killed, for the duly-elected people who run our government as they fled to escape the violence in fear of their own lives – and for the friendship that I mistakenly gave, and now am compelled to take from you.

With deep regrets

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“Newspeak”

by with 2 Comments CultureFeaturedPolitics

How do we create dialogue on different planes of reality?

I recently had a conversation with someone who stands on the far opposite end of the political spectrum from me. When I presented a verifiable fact, the type of fact that one could argue the reason for the content of the fact, but not the occurrence of the fact itself, I was told that it did not happen. “Fake news,” I was informed. I didn’t quite know what to say, but responded with a simple, “no, it’s not.” From there we argued whether or not the fact actually happened, and this person’s veracity made me question my truth. So, I re-verified what I knew to be fact. I felt vindicated, but I also felt cheated – that I had allowed what could have been a productive conversation between two people with different beliefs to turn into an argument over the very validity of a fact. Has political discourse become nothing more than petty arguments over what a fact is?

George Orwell, in his increasingly prescient novel 1984, said, “not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

We currently have a president who has told more than 10,000 non-truths in 2.5 years. But, he is an expert at denying what we can see with our own eyes. By repeating the lie over and over, we begin to question what the truth is and, over time, our truths become different realities. When I speak about something I know is truth, there are others that believe the opposite is true. One of us believes 2+2=5, and as a result, the other loses the freedom that comes from saying 2+2=4. And while one can say they have verifiable evidence that 2+2=4 (the mathematics community, etc.), the believer that 2+2=5 has a traditionally reliable source telling them they are correct, the President of the United States. The very existence of eternal reality is being questioned. Arguing if what we know beyond a reasonable doubt as fact is true destroys all meaningful dialogue on the important topics we need to discuss as a nation.

So, how do we make sense of this and return to an age when we could discuss things productively? I believe that dialogue is important, and our lack of conversations of substance has badly harmed our country.

I think there are several things we can do to begin curing this and healing.

First, we absolutely must elect a president that holds truth to the highest standard. Someone who is honest even when it’s unpopular and hasn’t shifted their goal posts throughout their career. We will never be able to re-discover integrity, on both sides of the aisle, if we don’t demand our elected leaders possess it.

Second, we must demand that social media give us an accurate depiction of the world and political landscape so we can escape our individual bubbles. Social media is designed as an echo chamber in which we are presented with information that furthers our beliefs and shows us what we already believe, not as an actual provider of information and truth.

Third, we continue to talk, at any cost. Maybe we have to schedule these talks with others that actually want to have dialogue on important topics. Maybe we need to have a computer nearby to verify data we disagree on the validity of. Maybe we begin the conversation by finding common ground and building from there. There are very few people who believe small children should be separated from their mother, even if they don’t believe the mother and child have a right to be in this country. Are we able to get to meaningful conversation by first agreeing that children should not be kept in jails away from their family?

Fourth, we have to always remember that we have been presented with separate facts, and we do not share the same truths. The bubbles we live in are not of our own making, but they are real and we won’t pierce through them by getting frustrated or angry. So, we understand that we need the dialogue, our realities are different, but we have common ground. Then we verify facts and we demand the way we receive information is based in reality and our elected leaders are committed to the truth. Who knows, it could work.

One thing is for sure, if we do nothing, it will be a bright cold day in April as the clocks strike thirteen. 

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