Life Matters - October 9, 2024

‘’Facts don’t care about your feelings.’’ - Ben Shapiro.  And indeed they don’t. We may like the facts or we may not like them, but they remain the same, nonetheless. ‘’Facts are stubborn things,’’ quoth John Adams.  And indeed they are. There are some things we can change and then there are those we cannot. There are fixed Laws of Nature that, love ‘em or hate ‘em, remain fixed despite any feelings we may or may not have about them. A man whose parachute won’t open may understandably go through a wide range of emotions on the way down but his feelings will not change the impact of what happens at the bottom end of his fall. The death that gravity has forced upon his body becomes a fact, because gravity is a fact, necessary for the proper function of this spinning orb.  

Gravity is, by far, not the only Law of Nature, but from the time we struggle upright in the crib until we lay down for the last time it is an ever-present necessary danger, its pull toward the earth has no regard for status, stature, cogitations of the mind nor its failures to calculate properly.  

The Laws of Logic seem to be suffering from a gravitational pull downward these days as otherwise sane (we think) politicians alter the definition of facts, outright lie about them, or skirt them with ‘’word salads.”  

The Vance / Walz debate was at least civil, but the liberal side did very little factual answering of questions with much dancing around the wrong ‘’issue’’ (Donald Trump) even blaming him for the COVID pandemic and the border disaster. As one brainy brain put it; ‘’Dancing around an issue without answering the question should be called the Harris Waltz.’’ 

I happened to hear President Biden’s day one executive orders and knew he was courting border, economic, and moral disasters. Without me even being (or maybe because of not being) all that worldly wise.  

Walz did sound coherent about abortion, while he danced around the question of full-term abortions and deciding what to do when a baby survives; but proved that even coherency can dance instead of directly answer to what Vance factually said is a new Minnesota law that legalizes letting the surviving baby of a botched abortion die if the mother and doctor so decide. (the wording has been changed during Walz’s tenure as Governor from requiring attempts to save the baby’s life to providing ‘’care’’ for the baby)  In a properly sane world that would mean one and the same thing, but then, in a properly sane world Matt Walsh’s documentary “What is a Woman?” would be so non-controversial as to garner very little attention for its sheer boredom as the documentary kept repeating what we already know.  

In the midst of that former belief in immovable facts we knew that men and women have their own unique bodies, interests, creativity, strengths, weaknesses, ways of expression, roles and responsibilities; but as evolution rhetoric devolved the structure of society away from the separate but equal in value beauty of one man and one woman into one of cross-gender sameness, the predictable confusion has led us (as a society) down an ever steeper slippery slope toward nihilistic destruction facilitated by perverse insanities.  

In the midst of all that man-made chaos a hurricane slams inland, dumping several feet of water onto mountainous regions, causing mudslides, unprecedented (at least, since Noah’s day we think} flooding that ruined many people’s homes, sources of income, and roads to get there. The federal government has been, for many years, looked to for help in such catastrophes, but reports are that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is very low in funds due to Ukraine and migrant spending even as the war continues and migrants keep coming. 

But, in the midst of natural disaster chaos, the general response from Americans all over has been heart-warming to hear and read about. Though we can’t all go and be physically there, the funds, supplies, and prayers provide the platform from which those on the front-lines can facilitate and do the actual work. And as volunteers work alongside, or with, paid state workers in response to disaster I am again encouraged and reminded that while on-purpose man-made disasters may drive us apart, natural disasters draw our attention to helping one another. 

Instead of blaming. Though the blame may come as President Biden, on the day after Hurricane Helene hit, was already shaking his head about ‘’climate change.’’ I’ve been around long enough to remember when ‘’climate change’’ flew by a different moniker called ‘’global warming.’’ The name was changed when the facts kept contradicting the narrative.  

I don’t know Thomas Sowell’s personal stance on man-made ‘’climate change’’ but with his sane thinking I’m guessing he is still open for facts to prove it. ‘’Emotions neither prove nor disprove facts, there was a time when any rational adult understood this. But years of dumbed-down education and emphasis on how people ‘feel’ have left too many people unable to see through this media gimmick.’’ Thank you, Mr. Sowell, well said.  

And this applies to all of life, the destructive, the pleasant, the grief, to a practical love in the midst of disaster; with God helping our feelings to align with the facts. 

Life Matters!