The slow demise of unvarnished facts on the YBR. Is truth on life-support?

I am neither a scholar nor a sage. In truth, no one gives a rat’s ass what I have to say, but say it I will even if no one reads this blog post.

In the spirit of being transparent, I will admit without embarrassment that I am a fact-checker despite the fact that I am continually told that I should not let facts get in the way of a good story. Should it matter if the family event happened on Thanksgiving in 1982 or if it happened at Easter in 1983? It shouldn’t matter as long as the purpose of the story is told as folklore, but not to “prove” something of some importance. That’s when facts matter. But, what is just as important (in my opinion) is if the facts are
unvarnished and not tainted with prejudice. I would also add that a fact not told is as bad as a lie.

I am an ardent believer and supporter of “facts” when those “facts,” after being scrutinized without prejudice, are deemed to be “unvarnished.” Then and only then can a just “argument” be made.

Arguments are actually meant to clear the air and bring about change that is true and just. Unfortunately, arguments today fail to take “all” the facts into account. Despite the “fact” that I might want something to
be “true,” I have to be willing to fully evaluate the unvarnished facts before what I believe is actually true,

I love to harvest facts. I harvest them by listening to different voices. I do not limit my reading and research to one set of “beliefs.” Of late, I am of the opinion that we have lost the ability to find out what is
true. We are more interested in “proving” our point, instead of finding or learning the truth.*

The airwaves, internet, and print are filled with stories coming out on the June Sixth hearings and the Hunter Biden Laptop. In both cases, I don’t believe either the arbiters of the hearings or the investigators of the laptop are out to find out what is true. I fear that in both cases the decision of what is “true” was decided long before any hearings or investigations began.

We have become so divided that to use a trite expression we can’t see the forest for the trees. I listen to the ladies of the View and to the WABC radio hosts. etc. While I admit to being “View-sided,” I don’t take sides before I can harvest the facts. The problem with many facts is that they are not sagebrush. Facts have long roots that run deep. There is no denying, again in my opinion, that what happened at our Nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a travesty. The how and why it happened needed to be investigated. But, instead of an unprejudiced hearing, a mob mentality often tainted the proceedings. 

There have been a plethora of “facts” divulged by the “witnesses” at the hearings. Is what they said the truth and nothing but the truth? Or were some of the “right” questions not asked because the answers might have challenged some of the other facts? 

The same logic applies to the Hunter Biden laptop investigation. If the investigators are only out to prove they are “right,” more than likely they won’t be asking questions that don’t fit their scenario.  There is, I “believe,” a greater truth in all that is happening today. And that truth is we are so divided and so angry that we have become blind to the truth. Hatred is killing all of us. If we can no longer be objective when it comes to finding the truth, we will be a nation built on a mountain of opinions.

And that I believe is our current state of affairs. Statements are made by politicians, broadcasters, and people in the media in a “factual” tone. Many of us take these statements to be solid, unvarnished facts when in truth they are not.

Call me an “unbeliever,” but when facts are thrown at me, I need to do some homework. And even then I often need to do more “fact-checking.”

OZ NOTE: To tie this into the YBR. Emerald City was not green. When the young man who landed in Oz after a balloon mishap was declared the Wizard of Oz, he set out to build “his” city. Since he loved the green of the Land of Oz, he called it the Emerald City…but since it was not green, he made all the people wear glasses with green lenses. The people never took them off. The fact that Emerald City was not green didn’t matter to them. Hmmm. Does that sound like us?

*I use the word truth here with some hesitancy because “truth” is a philosophical/religious construct. It is about “self-evident” matters. Truth and true are not the same things.

 

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Dorothy down the rabbit hole on the YBR…with apologies to Alice.

Those annoying paint by numbers

Had I been as enamored by Alice’s adventures in Wonderland as I was by Dorothy’s adventures in Oz, talking about falling down the rabbit hole would make more sense, but considering that for the last couple of years nothing makes sense, why should I be concerned about making sense.

Had Dorothy happened to have fallen down a rabbit hole as she traveled along the Yellow Brick Road, I contend she would have bypassed the Cheshire Cat and wandered into the paint by numbers room, the very place most of us have either visited, lived in, or still live in.

The paint by number room (PBN) is the place where we are obligated to complete a painting, not of our own design, but one we were given, or I should say, inherited. At some point in our lives, usually when we were young and very impressionable, we were told life was like a canvas and we were free to paint it.

That was a lie. We mistakenly believed we were given a blank canvas. We also believed we were free to paint it according to our whims and heart’s desires. Little did we know that the painting of our life had been prepared for us down to the smallest details. Each little space was given a number that corresponded to a color. All we had to do was paint by numbers.

When the world was simple and the rules of life were less complicated (but still very rigid), many of us had no problem with PBN. The world was really never as simple as we once believed, we were just more compliant. We were rule-followers deluxe.

The world hasn’t changed a lot. We’ve changed. We are not as compliant as we once were. We don’t want to PBN and those of us who have children and grandchildren don’t want to see them obligated to PBN.

The problem is we believe we have given our children/grandchildren a blank canvas. That is also a lie. In fact, while we have deluded ourselves into thinking there are no PBN’s, there are hundreds of different PBNs that go by brand names, such as democrat, republican, Catholic, gay, anti-gay, conservative, liberal, pro-Trump, anti-Trump, and on and on.

People who are painting a democrat PBN think their work deserves to be hanging in a museum, while people who are filling in red on a republican PBN believe their painting is the right and only painting.

The current Supreme Court Justice hearing in DC is a perfect example of the horrors of PBN. Democrats are using one PBN and Republicans are using another. Liberal or left-leaning commentators are proudly showing the world what the Supreme Court pick looks like and what the Court will look like with Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Justice. Needless to say, the painting the Republicans are holding up to the world looks a hell of a lot different.

The problem with any PBN is the finished picture is actually finished before you add the first drop of paint. The Democrat Party PBN is not about why Ketanji Brown Jackson is good for ALL AMERICANS, but all about how she is right because she will be the first black female Justice in history (and of course it goes WITHOUT question…in their PBN, that she is qualified beyond distinction). The Republican Party PBN doesn’t leave any room for painting outside the lines. Their painting is all about why she shouldn’t be appointed to the Supreme Court (and of course it goes WITHOUT question…in their PBN that she has made too many bad judicial choices in the past.)

What we are witnessing is not Paint by numbers, but HATE BY NUMBERS!

The hatred evidenced in the SC hearing is just one example of the hatred that exists on far too many levels in life today. If that isn’t enough we are all subjected to hate-filled PBN classes in the media. And we all seem to only attend those classes who are working on the same PBN that we are.

News alert. I don’t care what party you might belong to, neither of them is always right or always wrong. We are all hearing too much hate-filled rhetoric. We have lost the ability to listen with open ears, not ears stuffed with preconceived beliefs.

I think the word of the day should be: WAIT. Wait, let them speak. Wait, let’s hear them out. Wait, maybe we can work it out without destroying the world.

It’s time to tear out a blank page from the pad and draw together. It’s the only way we’ll get out of the rabbit hole.

(I never liked PBN. I got many a one for a birthday or Christmas, but I never, ever completed one.)

Note: for the curious among us, the word “draw” is interesting because while it means one thing in one situation, it has a different meaning in another. “Draw together.” It has more than one meaning.

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