The first time you hear something outrageous that is simply what it is, outrageous! Our collective response goes something like this...How could you say such a thing? This is one of the things that are part of the fabric of our society. That’s just the way it is. That’s a fact of life. That’s that.
A good example is,
Why Don’t People Who Are Not Citizens Have a Right to Vote?
The first time I heard this bit of “enlighten wisdom” it came from a city councilman in a small town in New England. Immediately he was attacked as an oddity that ought to be put in display in one of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Odditoriums.
Then the people who had a vested interest in seeing to it that non-citizens have a right to vote started spinning and many of us found ourselves thinking... I did not know that! or I never thought of that! or I never looked at it from that point of view!
In some circles the people who think that Non-Citizens Do Not Have a Right to Vote are now looked upon as the oddity.
This may surprise you but this posting is not about Non-Citizen Voting. It is about my world, as I knew it (past tense). It is about my world (present tense) being turned upside down.
This is what jolted me into the full realization that things are not what they used to be. It happened last Saturday as I was driving to a bookstore that sells my book to see if they had sold any of my books lately. I was listening to my car radio and I heard the following...
“The Truth Is an Opinion”
I always thought the truth was the truth. I always thought if is not true it is not true. I can imagine the panel discussion on TV where I am being put into my place and lectured down to with such “enlighten wisdom” as...
- What you fail to understand is there is your truth and there is my truth. You are not seeing the big picture.
- The next thing you are going to be telling us is facts are certainties. Don’t you understand that there are your facts and there are my facts? The two will always be separate unless and until you agree that my facts are the correct facts and your facts are, in fact, not facts but are hogwash.
- How did you ever get on this panel? Did I just hear you say that only the farmer who owns the land can plant his crops on that land? Are you serious? You mean to tell me that no one but the person who owns any particular parcel of land can plant crops on that particular parcel of land? Do you really think that is fair?
I wonder if that councilman in New England started all this or is it simply “enlightened thinking” enlightening us all?
This is what progress looks like...Or does it?
Would I kid u?
