Everyone’s entitled to his own opinion, Sen. Daniel Moynihan once said, long ago, but no one’s entitled to his own facts. Obviously Moynihan was talking about some planet other than ours.
It started in the universities, where all this poison hatches out, the idea that a text, any text, can only mean what the reader thinks it means. Academics liked this so much, they quickly applied it to everything. And we wound up having to say a man is a woman because he “identifies as a woman.”
Our public discourse today, at least that part of it that’s hurled at us by liberals, rests on the replacement of ascertainable facts by assertions that liberals want to be facts. They demand we base policy on whatever it is they say—because, after all, there’s no such thing as truth, there’s only politics. The rest of us are expected to let them define reality for everyone.
So last week it was the Red Pope, Francis I, solemnly assuring us that there’s no such thing as Muslim terrorism, that “it does not exist.” Does he think it’s Methodists who yell “Allahu akbar!” as they drive a truck into a crowd of defenseless people? Does he think ISIS is just some kind of Middle Eastern Lions Club? We are talking facts here, but he denies the facts. He doesn’t like them, so he denies them. And the rest of us are expected to nod our heads and say “He’s right!”
In the same speech, the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, having just denied that Muslim terrorism exists, went into yet another sales pitch for Man-Made Climate Change, which we are pretty sure does not exist. Gotta pony up that carbon tax, says the Pope, and give governments all sorts of sweeping new powers to meddle with our lives, so they can Save The Planet: otherwise we’re all gonna die, blah-blah.
This guy’s just too much. He warns us to beware “what happens when we deny science and disregard the voice of nature.” He expresses concern for “our Sister Mother Earth.” Now he’s a prophet who speaks for Mother Earth. It doesn’t seem to matter to him how often NOAA and NASA and the rest of the Climate Change mob get caught lying and cheating. These are his facts—his facts—and he demands the world act according to his own personal definition of reality.
This is getting to be dangerous.
On Fox News, Tucker Carlson recently interviewed one of the leaders of the Berkeley riots, Yvette Felarca. This woman—employed as a middle school teacher, when she’s not rioting—has been very creative in making up her own facts. She’s trying to start a jihad of intimidation and violence against “fascists.” Who’s a fascist? Anyone who disagrees with her on any point.
She justifies what she has done, and what she wants to do, by claiming that “fascists,” otherwise known as ordinary people, are going around America “committing genocide” against this and that cherished minority—oh: and minorities, she says, are actually the majority—and must be stopped “by any means necessary” before they kill off most of the people in the country.
This woman is either one of the world’s most audacious liars, or locked firmly into a full-blown delusion. Her proposed solution to America’s problems—as defined by her own loopy set of facts—is to organize a coast-to-coast witch-hunt. Carlson had her on videotape demonstrating how her policy works: she physically attacks a Trump supporter, and is soon joined by several left-wing goons who knock the man to the street and start kicking him. Her “facts” entitle her to do this. In fact, they oblige her to do it.
Is it any wonder that a lot of people are starting to think that leftism is a mental illness?
Pope Francis doesn’t go around with a bunch of cardinals knocking down and kicking Climate Change deniers, but the only difference between him and Schoolmarm Yvette is that he relies on government to force people to do what he wants, while she’s into more of a hands-on approach.
God help us if we can’t clean up this mess.
I have discussed these topics, and others, on my blog, http://leeduigon.com, throughout the week. Please stop by and read! All it takes is just one click to get you there.
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