Comments from finance/tech guy turned novelist. Author of best seller Campusland. Follow on Twitter: @SJohnston60.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
The Limits of Facts
I don't blog every day, which probably limits my audience. In particular, I don't generally blog about hyper-current events. When Obama issued his executive order on immigration last week, you can imagine that I might have had a serious problem with that - I did. But there were probably hundreds of pieces out there that felt the same way, and expressed it well. I write something only when I think I have something original to say. That explains why sometimes I will go a month without writing anything.
Today's media tsunami is about Ferguson. There is little, on either side, unexpressed. But let me add one thought to the noise.
Facts don't matter much anymore, at least to the progressive left. Perhaps they never did, but Ferguson really seals it.
I watched the Ferguson DA lay out the case (or lack of one). It was thorough, logical, and overwhelming. But the crowds outside weren't listening - they couldn't, since they weren't in front of TVs. But even if they had been, it wouldn't have mattered. Witness all the people around the country who took to the streets in the hours after. Presumably, many of them had been watching. No matter.
The real proof came yesterday, when social media lit up with outrage, and left-wing journalists goaded on the mob.
Or how about this, in an email from the Episcopal Diocese of New York:
Join Faith leaders and community members at First Corinthian's Baptist Church as we grieve with the Brown family and at justice denied in Ferguson. Join us as we also recommit to changing the system that perpetuates these injustices.
What injustices? Did they watch the DAs presentation? Did they look at the evidence that was subsequently made public? Perhaps, perhaps not. It wouldn't have mattered, because facts that disturb the narrative are facts to be ignored.
There is an anarchist element within the left that is going mainstream. It was Occupy. It was the G8 protests. It was the climate march. Now, Ferguson. They move from opportunity to opportunity, with little coherent thread other than a tearing down of America's traditions and values.
That's why you can argue all you want, you can lay down the most bulletproof argument imaginable, you won't get anywhere. They can't be reached.
Facts don't matter.
Sounds more like a description of some of the right wing nut jobs, e.g. Ted Cruz on net neutrality, than the left wing ...
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing was a fix from the start. It's called the Blue Wall. They were telegraphing it from the beginning with strategic leaks. His testimony was a farce. What irate black man stops in the middle of beating up on a cop to pass over a box of cigars? Oh yeah, those cigars he didn't know were stolen at the time. But you are correct. The facts don't matter regardless of your ideology. That's what ideology is all about. You separate out the facts and stick with the fiction.
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