When Jesus of Nazareth appears before Pilate in Jerusalem, Jesus tells Pilate that “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37) Pilate responds with one of the most famous questions in history, “What is truth?”
In post-modern America where people now talk about your truth and their truth instead of the truth, it is a question that needs some real attention. The conservative movement needs to do a better job of focusing on the question. Too many hucksters are twisting the truth to keep people riled up and enraged instead of providing answers.
In Georgia, Ahmaud Arbery is dead. Two men, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael, attempted to stop Mr. Arbery for supposedly breaking into a home. The men pulled guns, a struggle ensued, and Travis McMichael shot Arbery who died at the scene.
Sadly, the event happened in February and it took months before a video of the shooting surfaced online and media generated outrage provoked action at the state level. The local district attorney had a business relationship with the elder McMichael and some local politicians claim the police were instructed not to arrest the McMichaels. The state of Georgia is now launching not just an investigation into the killing, but into the local officials who tried to stop arrests.
As the outrage gained national traction that transcended races, ideologies, and parties, some started to suggest there was more there. Video surfaced of Arbery visiting a construction site. People suggested that was proof he had been a potential burglar as the McMichaels claimed. The owner of the construction site said nothing had been taken and it was not unusual for people to show up to look at the work. Another video surfaced purporting to show Arbery scoping out a house repeatedly as if planning to burglarize it. But multiple people subsequently stepped forward to say that was not him in the second video.
Why would any of that matter anyway? Some people are more interested in proving Arbery was no saint than they are interested in acknowledging his lack of sainthood did not give two men authority to kill him in the street. Some people are more interesting in finding excuses for the McMichaels than in acknowledging the truth. Ahmaud Arbery died because two men thought they could attempt, at gunpoint, to detain him without law enforcement for crimes they presumed but did not witness.
Disturbingly, many of the people seeking now to cast aspersions on Arbery are the same people who have spent months lying about COVID-19. Some of them claimed the virus originated in the United States. Others claimed the virus was nothing more than a flu. Still others claimed the science was all wrong or Bill Gates is engaged in a global conspiracy or any other manner of absurdity.
The malignant obfuscation to undermine healthcare experts and public policy in the United States for grift, attention, or internet celebrity has been revolting. While it is perfectly reasonable to question the need for policies like sheltering-in-place or the accuracy of models, the willful distortion of truth has picked up a dangerous amount of steam. The idea that a virus that has killed over 80,000 Americans in ten weeks while Americans are sheltering-in-place is just a bad flu is an obscene statement.
Unfortunately, too many of the same people seeking to pervert the truth of the Arbery situation and the virus situation are voices who pretend to be on the right. They have no real ideological ties to conservatism. They are just seeking to build audiences or revenue from conservative skepticism of government. They have been nursing grievances for their own gain. They have turned their back on truth like Pilate.
Conservatism has long had a healthy foundation in truth and the nature of man. Conservatives have never hoped to build a heaven on earth like progressives because we know we are all sinners and should want as few other sinners in charge of us as possible. But conservatives must want and seek truth to have trust in the public square. We have an obligation to it.
Yes. The only thing I find more disturbing than the faux political commentaries are the people that embrace them without due diligence. I learned the hard way that digital information can be manipulated in such a way as to give credibility to even the most outlandish premise.
We live in an era where media clips from verifiable sources can be downloaded and edited so that the subject of the video appears to be saying something that was not said. Video and sound editing apps and programs are myriad and are used in daring ways to subvert facts.
There is a lot of money to be made as an e-celebrity. My daughters work editing game videos for a YouTube channel; sounds hokey until you find out that there are hundreds of gaming channels (generally referred to as LP's/Let's Plays) on YouTube that clear in the millions of dollars. Several years ago, one channel in particular made national news when the owner garnered millions of subscribers and in one year cleared 12.3 million dollars. All for sitting at home and playing video games on YouTube.
There are equally lucrative channels on YouTube that cover politics - some even lay claim to being citizen journalists. They aren't. Their 'journalism' amounts to sitting at their laptops and perusing websites, news sites, opinion sites and compiling 'facts' that support whatever spin they believe will be the most eye-catching and therefore profitable.
Digital media is easily manipulated - the software to do it is readily available - words, pauses, a glance or smirk can be added or deleted or exaggerated with the click of a mouse. We are living in a time where conspiracy theories can be dreamed-up and then 'substantiated', not by facts, but by a software program. Common sense and a discerning spirit would be useful these days, unfortunately, neither appear to be in abundance on the internet.
This morning I opened your email just after my morning devotional and got a bonus. I am so grateful to have a voice in the media whose foundation is godly.
So many are heartbroken (and mad as hell) at the injustice that ended Mr. Arbery's life and the injustice didn't end there. Thank you for using your voice to perhaps give strength to those who seem indifferent to this and other horrific matters. It's time to step up and speak up against this and so much injustice that has crept into our lives and gone unchecked.
Look forward to hearing you at 9 this morning. God's blessing's to you and your family.