STREET SMART: Truth is incontrovertible

 

January 17, 2019



“Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may hate it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But, in the end, there it is.” Winston Churchill wrote those words in his War Memoirs after World War II. This quote has become one of my favorites. I love it for its accuracy and simplicity. In preparation for this week’s column, I looked up the word truth in Webster’s Dictionary. Here’s their definition: “A body of real things, events, and facts (emphasis mine).”

We’re in the middle of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and it all stems from controversy surrounding the proposed border wall. On January 5, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen gave a presentation at the White House regarding border security and illegal immigration. Nancy Pelosi interrupted the presentation and stated, “I reject your facts.” Nielsen responded, “They’re not MY facts, they’re THE facts.” Pelosi didn’t like the facts, so she rejected them! I had to ask myself if I’d read that correctly. Turns out I had.


Good job Nancy. No wonder you’re making the big bucks! I’ve been doing this all wrong. I’d been taught and always believed that facts/truth had to be faced head on and dealt with, not rejected or ignored. If I’d known that rejecting them was so simple, I’d have been doing so for years. I want to try this. Let’s reject some facts together! I’d like to start with the fact that some kids get terminally ill. I really hate that fact more than most others so let’s reject it first! Next how about the fact of homelessness, or the fact of hunger? Crime, violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking… can we reject those facts too and then keep going?


Please forgive my sarcasm, but Pelosi’s extraordinary ignorance/arrogance brings it out. Pelosi’s statement highlights what I believe is the fundamental difference between a liberal perspective of the world versus the conservative view. I believe that liberals (laudably) view the world as they believe it should be, whereas conservatives view the world as it is. For example, the presentation I described above was the compilation of information provided by the experts who are actually on the ground working the border situation (facts). Pelosi decided to reject their information (facts). Why? Because it conflicted with her world view. She chose to ignore the experts!


Sanders County Ledger canvas prints

Do your own research, don’t take my word for it! Read what our border security experts are telling us (interestingly, experts from past presidential administrations concur). Ignore what you hear in the news, that information is filtered by the agenda of the outlet providing it. Get your facts straight from the source. The information is there, but unfortunately, you’ll have to dig for it. Do you ever wonder why the truth is so elusive? How can CNN provide information regarding a factual incident that is so much different from information provided by FOX? Unfortunately, all media outlets have their own agendas and that single fact forces us all to dig down and get the truth ourselves. When you do the hard work of digging up the facts you’ll be enlightened. Once you’ve done that, you’ll ask yourself the same question I asked; how can Pelosi and her cronies claim to reject facts provided by the experts? Why do they have such resistance to accepting the information provided by the expert people actually working the problem? The only plausible explanation is that they have an alternate agenda of their own. If you had three medical experts telling you that you had an illness and needed a certain treatment, would you ignore their advice or face the unfortunate fact that you’re ill?

On January 3, the National Border Patrol Council (Border Patrol officer’s union) publicly stated that border patrol agents are willing to keep the government shut down for as long as it takes to get funding for the wall, even if they have to continue working without pay. That fact didn’t get much play in the news (I know…shocking right?!) but it’s extraordinarily significant. Consider it. The people on the ground working the problem are willing to forego their pay in favor of a tactic they believe will make their job easier and safer in the long term.

Now think about this logically. Visualize a wall with gates. People coming to that wall will have to move toward the gates in order to get through. Those gates will be controlled by our Border Patrol officers. People wishing to enter our country can then be processed in an orderly manner. Resources can be taken from patrolling a porous border and moved to the processing gates and other duties such as drug interdiction or human trafficking. If there’s a down side to securing the border in the orderly fashion I just described, I’m not seeing it. It sounds like a solution that both sides of the debate are looking for.

Now, before some readers race to their keyboards to fire off an angry rebuttal, understand something. My support of the border wall is not because I’m a blind follower or a racist. My support is based on a well-reasoned analysis of my own personal (and yes,”real world”) experience and the opinions of the subject matter experts. Additionally, I don’t put too much faith in any numbers provided by either side. As Mark Twain once said, “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” I’ve spent most of my life living and working with an immigrant population. As I’ve stated before, I’ve seen firsthand the negative impact of a weak immigration policy. I’ve watched the crime rate rise while resources dwindled. I’ve also learned to trust the actual experience and not to rely on numbers. It’s been suggested that resistance to immigrants might be due to a lack of familiarity with their culture(s). I guess that could be a possibility, but my experience doesn’t support that view. While there are certainly differences, I’ve learned that all immigrants, regardless of origin, are simply people just like all of us. There’s good and bad in all cultures. The racist narrative is a false one.

I’d like someone to rebut this and hit me with some facts. Not just opinion based on emotion or a “unicorns and rainbows” world view. Facts! If you’ve actually lived it and see it differently, speak up. Contrary to what most would believe, I’d like to be proven wrong. As I stated above, I look at the world as it really is. I’d love it if someone could show me what I’m missing and change my perspective.

Blaine Blackstone is a retired Los Angeles Police Sergeant who enjoys the simpler life in Thompson Falls. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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