It’s been a few days since the massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
During that time, all the usual things, plus one unusual thing, has happened.
Americans have responded with an outpouring of support and help for the victims and their families.
News networks have gone on a 24/7 orgy of talking-headism, each of them pushing their own particular viewpoint to the exclusion of reality.
President Obama has issued a call for gun control amid platitudes.
A nut from the culture wars, in an act of complete irrationality that ignores every and all facts of the situation, has claimed that “Christians” are responsible for the slaughter.
These actions are the same old stuff we always get. They guarantee that we will end up with what we’ve always got.
The one difference was presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. He labeled the terrorism as Islamic-inspired and said that this country should limit immigration from certain parts of the world, at least on a temporary basis.
I’m no fan of Mr Trump. I’ve long since grown weary of his race-baiting rhetoric. Mr Trump is crude and he speaks crudely. He is a demagogue without pretensions to be anything else.
He is also the creation of the lying liars of the media and government who insist on employing Orwellian double-speak whenever they are confronted with an uncomfortable reality. The truth of the matter is, we need our leaders to stop lying to us and trying to manipulate us and lay their ideologies aside and put the American people first in their considerations.
These continual lies have created an angry divide between the American people and many of their institutions, most notably the press and government. We simply do not believe President Obama. We do not think Congress can or will do its job. And we’ve become so absolutely sure of media bias that we chose our news stations based on which form of bias most conforms to our own. We no longer look at the news as a source of information, but rather as a sort of pep rally, where our “side” and its propaganda are given full sway.
That’s why Donald Trump stands out, and it’s why he’s gotten this far in presidential politics. He may be crude and he may be rude, but at least he says something that isn’t vetted according to a script worked out by poll-watching think tanks.
That is also why Senator Sanders has become the heartburn of the Democratic Party. Political deep-thinkers gave his candidacy no chance. He was labeled an easy guy to take out and ignored. Instead, he has forced the party machine to resort to every devious tactic in its possession, just to keep their hand-picked girl ahead.
Why?
Because he was the only candidate for the Democratic nomination for president who said what he actually meant. He spoke about the American people and what is good for America instead of dumping endless platitudes and carefully parsed and tested phraseology into the air.
The lying liars and manipulators who hold control of so many of our institutions — including the press, government, education and both political parties — have been jostled and jangled by these two upstart candidates and their impassioned followers.
Why?
Because the American people are tired of the lie. They are tired of being disrespected, lied to, manipulated and bullied as if they were the enemy.
Donald Trump hit a nerve with his call to limit immigration from parts of the world that are exporting terrorists. He did not say that all Muslims are terrorists. He did not even say that this limitation should be indefinite. He only said that we should limit immigration from those parts of the world until things change.
This idea deserves serious discussion, not name-calling and personal attacks. It is a serious question of policy that affects the safety of every American, including Muslim Americans who are not terrorists and don’t want their communities and places of worship taken over.
So far, the response to Mr Trump’s suggestion of a policy change has been greeted with highly emotional, spittle-flinging invectives and name-calling. That is no way for responsible and intelligent people to discuss the merits of a policy issue. It is, rather, an indirect admission that the very idea scares the name-callers and that they have no true answer for it.
If you go to this link, you can find photos and the names of the innocent people who were murdered in a wanton act of barbarism Saturday night. It turns out that the murderer had also considered massacring innocent people in Disney World. Innocent people having fun on Saturday night: It’s hard to get more American than that, unless you think of Disney World.
This was an attack on us. All of us. We deserve public institutions who talk about it honestly, without Orwellian double-speak.
Go to the link, and look at the beautiful faces of these latest American martyrs in the war on terrorism, and pray for their souls. Then, pray for our country as well.