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Summary
This is not a podcast about race, sexual preference or left vs. right. This is a podcast about how agendas are so important to some that a supporting alternate reality, a series of lies, is created to support the agenda. The alternate reality, the lies, is then defended as the truth
For the next 10 minutes, we will talk about what this means for everything from our personal integrity to the future of the republic.
Transcript
This is not a podcast about race, sexual preference or left vs. right. This is a podcast about how agendas are so important to some that a supporting alternate reality, a series of lies, is created to support the agenda. The alternate reality, the lies, is then defended as the truth.
For the next 10 minutes, we will talk about what this means for everything from our personal integrity to the future of the republic.
Let’s start by stopping calling this a hoax. A hoax is something much more lighthearted; perhaps damaging, but more like a joke or a prank. This was a well-staged event, carefully designed to malign and accuse a broad swath of Trump supporters, and those perceived as being aligned with those supporting Trump. This was a hate crime, bordering on political terrorism.
Jussie Smollett, a black actor, staged an implausible hate crime, paying other participants $3,500 (by check!). I don’t know who bought the noose that was supposed to have been part of the crime perpetrated by the paid participants calling out “This is MAGA Country!”. Jussie checked off all the boxes. He is clearly black and openly gay. He staged this deceit to include a noose along with red hat folks beating him and yelling about MAGA country while pouring bleach on him. Why? Both the black Chicago Police Chief and the black judge who have him the $100K bail said that he had disgraced himself and the city because he wanted to make more than his current $65/episode for his starring role in the TV series “Empire”, and thought the publicity would help.
Almost as many celebrities and politicians who could make it to a microphone immediately supported Mr. Smollett, saying things like this was a “modern day lynching.” There was rush to go on the record to signal their virtue and anti-hate purity, “Hate has no pace here.” When the facts–there’s that word again–started coming out, the very same people refused to comment, saying that they needed to wait until all the facts came out. Huh. They did not need a single fact past Mr. Sollett’s claim before they aligned up against the “MAGA Country” accused perps, and, by extension, all people who align with or support in any way the current President.
It is cheap and easy to want to wait for the facts when the evidence is against you. There is no honor there. Honor and respect is yours when you wait for the facts before expressing an opinion when the initial and incomplete, but potentially convincing evidence, is in your favor. That’s when standing up for due process earns respect.
This is a good time to point out that when there are real issues, like racial or sexual-preference hatreds, there is no need to fake it. Has anyone read about the Jews faking anti-Jew hate crimes in Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s? Or fake anti-black crimes in the Jim Crow post Civil War days? Of course not. The issues were real, so no fakes were required to make the point. Isn’t is clear to everyone how miraculously far we have come in the less than 250 years America has existed? Why aren’t we celebrating that stunning progress, all while working together to keep making things better? Wouldn’t that be far more to the point than manufacturing victims amid dwindling real issues? Is it that activists, facing dwindling stacks of real issues, don’t just celebrate and deal with the remaining issues, they make things up, creating the appearance that not all that much has changed? And don’t they do that so they will still have a platform, providing them with money and notoriety? The progress from horrific issues, slavery, for example, to less horrific but still terrible issues, Jim Crow for example, to dwindling pockets of prejudice, to the many instances like Jussie Smollett (see link), might be described as: macro to mini to micro to made up. That last part, made up, greatly endangers the desired timely, continuing progress.
Today’s Key Point: We are all capable of this. It does not matter that we feel we can prove the “other side” is far more guilty of this behavior than are we or “our side.” You can rest assured the others, the “other side”, is as convinced they are the wronged ones as are we. We need to fix this in ourselves and in our groups. I hope that we all know that we cannot fix others. We need to fix the issue.
Facts, not cliches, facts and non agenda-based reasoning should give rise to agendas. We must stop the practice of coming up with an agenda, then searching for something that might be seen as facts and reasoning to support the self-serving agenda. And if you have been with me for any time at all, you will know that it all starts with finding common goals.
Curious about the latter part of today’s podcast title? “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles”, “Germany, Germany over all” has been the first stanza of the German National song from 1922 until today. Since the end of WWII and the fall of the Nazis, only the third stanza, leading off with words about unity, justice and freedom, is sung as the Anthem. Today’s podcast title proclaiming Agenda Over All is not at all intended to invoke a comparison to Nazi Germany. It is intended to draw a comparison, perhaps even a parallel, between the current agenda over reasoning and facts model, and all totalitarian organizations, whether they be volunteer groups, businesses or governments. And we don’t need to boot out the media that does legitimate reporting and replace them with state media as did the Nazis. It seems that many powerful media have simply volunteered for the agenda-supporting role.
One last point on faked hate crimes. You may have read about incidents of stolen valor, where, for instance a person falsely claims to have been a Navy SEAL. Or simply goes around in a purchased uniform looking for military discounts and unearned respect. That person is guilty of stolen valor. Fake hate crime perpetrators are guilty of watering down the lesson we all need to learn from real hate crimes. Jussie Smollett, in this case, is guilty of stolen victimhood.
All of this ties to the core, driving principles at Revolution 2.0, which are:
If we apply those two core principles simultaneously, never only one or the other, we will always be on the right path. Depending upon what we face, one principle or the other may appropriately be given more emphasis, but they are always acted upon together.
The Founders, Revolution 1.0, were declared traitors by the British Crown, and their lives were forfeit if caught. We risk very little by stepping up and participating in Revolution 2.0™. In fact, we risk our futures if we don’t. I am inviting you, recruiting you, to join Revolution 2.0™ today. Join with me in using what we know how to do–what we know we must do–to everyone’s advantage. Let’s practice thinking well of others as we seek common goals, research the facts that apply to those goals, and use non agenda-based reasoning to achieve those goals together. Practice personal responsibility and be your brother’s keeper.
Let’s continue to build on the revolutionary vision that we inherited. Read the blog, listen to the podcast, subscribe, recruit, act. Here’s what I mean my “acting.”
Revolution 1.0 in 1776 was built by people talking to other people, agreeing and disagreeing, but always finding ways to stay united and going forward. Revolution 2.0 will be built the same way.
Join me. Join the others. Think about what we are talking about and share these thoughts and principles with others. Subscribe, encourage others to subscribe. Act. Let’s grow this together.
And visit the store. Fun stuff, including hats, mugs and t-shirts. Recommend other items that you’d like to see.
Links and References
Contact
As we get ready to wrap up, please do respond in the blog with comments or questions about this podcast or anything that comes to mind, or connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And you can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite device through Apple Podcasts, Google, or Stitcher.
Now it is time for our usual parting thought. It is not enough to be informed. It is not enough to be a well informed voter. We need to act. And if we, you and I, don’t do something, then the others who are doing something, will continue to run the show.
Know your stuff, then act on it. Knowing your stuff without acting is empty; acting without knowing is dangerous.
Will Luden, writing to you from my home office at 7,200’ in Colorado Springs.
