Truth Goes Limping

What have you read recently about your government, your president, your congress, your justice department?  What cable news station do you watch for information?  What newspapers do you read?  These questions are important—and your answer is even more important.  Thomas Jefferson said democracy is “dependent upon an educated and enlightened citizenry.” Jefferson  also stated, "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”  The media is not “the enemy of the people.”  That is an echo of Stalin, Hitler, and Putin—all three having used the ploy.  

Don’t let anyone “shut up” the freedom of the press.  At the same time, don’t take the word of one newspaper, or one cable network or one Facebook story.  Check out everything; examine everything, including your own opinions and prejudices, think for yourself using all the evidence you can find!  Don’t even take the word of the president.  It is a visible, known, evident truth that he does not tell the truth.  This is a statement of fact, not a partisan opinion or comment.  Watch out, too, for the trickery and chicanery of other elected officials.  They often speak with forked tongues.  

I just don’t understand how we can presume (which we are doing) that truth does not exist or cannot  be uncovered.  I don’t understand why one voice becomes truth—while the many voices speaking the very opposite are ignored or seen as speaking falsehood. First of all, it is the beginning of an autocracy, and second, it shows our ignorance.

Aren’t you tired of the prefabricated, fictionalized versions of facts, events and the official lies?  Aren’t you weary of the disinformation?  Do you not sense the harassment of those tweets—full of bullying statements, exaggeration and deception.  Aren’t you weary of  the cursing, the demeaning and condemnation of those who resist? Aren’t you concerned about the Tampa, Florida mob last night that jeered the media representatives with words that had to be bleeped out before the footage could be aired? Does not your heart break to see children separated from their parents in the United States of America?

That is the scary part—that you may not be tired, weary, or concerned.  Well, I am!