The Missing Link – Civility
Is anyone really shocked, angered or outraged over the BuzzFeed and Covington Catholic School disinformation campaigns perpetrated on the American public in recent days? Even after both “stories” have been debunked?
In case you try to avoid the toxic media and political environments right now, BuzzFeed reported that there was email and other evidence that said President Donald Trump asked his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress and that special counsel Robert Mueller could verify it. Main stream and social media immediately ran with the story, frothing at the prospect of Trump being impeached. Finally!
Long story short, Mr. Mueller stepped forward to state the story isn’t true.
As if that wasn’t evidence enough that the main stream media is a propaganda arm of the progressive left, on Sunday it set about to destroy the lives of dozens of boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. Main stream media ran with a two or three minute clip that portrayed these boys as taunting and threatening an elderly Native American man. A story that is almost universally being walked back.
It took three minutes to destroy the lives of these boys, their families, their school and their town. Social media posts were made calling for assassinating these boys, their families and their teachers. To beat them and lock them in their school and set it on fire. There were posts of their personal information on social media so that those willing to do them harm would know where to find them. These threats were taken seriously that the school was closed on Tuesday, January 22.
Even if the story wasn’t a lie, these are children.
If you want the “truth” about what really happened at the Lincoln Memorial, please watch the Tick-Tock provided by The Blaze, which spent eight hours going through the video to prepare a timeline. In the end you will be better able to judge who the victims were and who the aggressors were.
Here’s the link to Tick-Tock: https://youtu.be/nx-k4subMIA
What does this have to do with life in Frederick County? Plenty. At least I think it does, but judging by past events, I may be alone in my sentiment.
A quick look at our friends on Facebook and Twitter, Democrat, progressive, conservative and Republican, illustrates we are too quick to judge and not adult enough to admit when we are wrong.
For every post condemning the boys, there was not an apology. A few even doubled down. Why? Why are we so quick to judge but unwilling to admit we are wrong?
Apologies won’t advance the agenda of our current ideological positioning and there are no longer serious consequences for egregious behavior, especially on social media. Adults demand of students what they, themselves cannot give – courtesy.
We have had two Board of Education members barely reprimanded for behavior we would punish a student for. Our County Council just appointed Lois Jarman (who called four candidates running for the Board of Education “HERPies”), to the same Board of Education.
How do we expect civility in public discourse when we don’t demand it? If you can shame, harass, embarrass and dehumanize your neighbors, and then be appointed to a position of responsibility, why be civil?
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