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Wednesday, August 16, 2017

When Do Facts Matter?

Do facts matter?  If they do, when does that happen?

These may sound like silly questions, but they have to be raised after watching the over the top reaction to events in Charlottesville and afterwards as well as to President Trump's comments.  Do the facts regarding Charlottesville matter?  They certainly should, but they really do not seem to.  Yesterday, at his news conference, President Trump mentioned that there were left-wing thugs who started the melee in Virginia by charging into the crowd swinging clubs.  That's not an opinion; it is a fact.  One network seemed so surprised that Trump would mention this fact, that they did a "fact check" on their evening news and concluded to their surprise that Trump was actually correct in his statement.  Then the same network went on to express outrage at Trump's comments.  For the media, it seems, facts don't really matter.

So when would facts matter?  After the San Bernardino terror attack, the media kept telling us that there was no clear evidence of any direct tie between the husband and wife terrorists and ISIS or al Qaeda.  They may have planned an attack; they may have been listening to lectures by ISIS clerics; they may have attacked innocent people at a Christmas party, but absent some direct tie between ISIS and the terrorists couple, it wasn't really a terror attack for certain.  In that case, the media made facts hyper important.  They ignored the bulk of the facts and focused on one missing ingredient.  When it later turned out that evidence of a direct tie was uncovered, few in the media announced the story that the couple had indeed carried out a terror attack.  When the antifa nearly burned down downtown Portland Oregon in a violent protest, the media did not focus on the violence as improper.  After all, these were left wing protesters, so they must have been "driven" to violence.  The facts were ignored.  When there was zero evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, the media focused on suppositions and assumption rather than facts.  So when have facts actually mattered?

It seems sadly that facts don't matter at all to the mainstream media.

To be clear, this is not a justification of the white supremacist groups in Charlottesville.  They are hateful and repugnant to everything that America stands for.  The point, however, is that those counter protesters who came to Charlottesville to carry out violent acts are no better.  We have laws that tell us when people can march and what they can say.  Then we have methods for resolving disputes like whether or not to keep statues in place.  No one, for any reason, gets to take the law into his or her own hands.

In 1977, the American Nazi party organized a march through the town of Skokie, Illinois, an area outside Chicago that was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors.  The town denied them the right to march.  The case was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court which held that even the Nazis have the right to be heard under our Constitution.  Skokie was order to grant a march permit.

The point of the Skokie ruling was not that the Supreme Court favored Nazis.  It was that the essence of America that sets us apart from so many other countries is that as Americans we have freedom.  That includes the freedom of speech and of assembly.  Throughout our history over a million soldiers have died to preserve those freedoms.  We ought not decide now that politics is going to intervene and let one group silence another.  The Nazis and the KKK, yes even them, have the right to say what they want, no matter how odious.  On the other side, the antifa and other far leftists have the right to say what they want, no matter how odious.  Neither side, however, has the right to use violence to silence the other.  As a country, we have to make sure that people who want to speak can do so.  The very essence of our country is at stake.

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