.jpg)
There are people still believing the January 6th, 2021, attack on our United States Capitol was not an insurrection.
Equally mystifying is that some still believe the claim that sent them: one man’s declaration, without any proof, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
The whole lot argues the mob assaulting the Capitol was “peacefully and rightfully” protesting election irregularities that wrongfully denied their candidate and leader the 2020 election – a thoroughly debunked myth.
Federal Protective Services estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people marched to Capitol Hill following orders from their defeated candidate that they go and “fight like Hell!”
Subsequent estimates had 2,000 “protesters” violently breaking into and illegally entering the Capitol, vandalizing and stealing as they searched the halls and rooms for victims of their leader’s wrath.
I wonder how these deniers would have reacted if one of their homes had been the target of that mob.
Imagine 15,000 people hurling threats and curses in front of your picket fence, all while chanting to hang somebody inside.
But wait, 15,000 people might not fit in your neighborhood. Let’s cut these estimates to 1%.
Imagine 150 people surging against your picket fence while members of your household struggle to hold them back. Your son or brother – maybe both – are drenched with bear spray and collapse, gasping, under the crush of the mob and the fence.
Another member of your household, your daughter or niece, is struck with a metal pipe and falls bleeding and unconscious to the ground.
The mob swarms into your yard where gallows are constructed for the person they want to lynch. Your family members on the ground are trammeled and trampled.
Twenty people (1% of the 2,000 Capitol breachers) begin an assault on your windows and doors to gain entry. They use anything you left in your yard – a rake, a patio umbrella, lawn furniture, decorative stones – to smash their way into your house.
As the intruders gain entry and roam through your home they vandalize and steal your property. One defecates on your desk.
At what point would you get your rifle down from the mantle?
When would you start firing to protect your home, your family, and yourself?
No jury would ever convict you of a crime for resisting this violent invasion.
And for the man who goaded the mob into attacking your home? Surely, you’d clamor for him to face charges for provoking this violent assault.
What would you say about people protecting him from prosecution?
What would you think on hearing them characterize the attack on your home as “some friendly neighbors over for a peaceful visit”?
It must take an exhausting amount of energy to tortuously twist and contort one’s moral standards and religious beliefs into the pretzel it takes to be okay with a man who would incite such blatant aggression on our Constitution. To ignore or excuse the criminal charges and civil suits against him (voter fraud, insurrection, civil fraud, defamation, unwanted fondling, sexual assault, bribes to conceal adultery, cheating and lying for monetary gain – trappings of a gifted huckster) must require a tremendous amount of energy to keep one’s spine from snapping back straight in protest.
Maybe moral standards and religious beliefs are not so hard for some to suspend.
It helps deniers and collaborators to have a source of excuses, irrationalities, and other people to point at and disparage. Pity is, this source is the same one that first supplied the disinformation and conspiracy frights that stoked their fears and prejudices.
I get three or four scam calls a day and a similar number of e-mails. The scam calls I don’t answer and block. The emails, touting alarming conspiracies or great stock buys, are “unsubscribed” and blocked.
I totally ignore social media. It is much safer, and easier, to stick to verifiable truths and facts. Allowing lies and illogic into one’s beliefs and actions are foolish additions to one’s character.
I’m a critical thinker, wary of political scams and ridiculous stock deals. They only benefit the sender! I’m thoroughly “WOKE” – awake and aware – of what is going on when presented with absurd notions and ludicrous alarms from some conspiracy theorist or “alternativefact” tub-thumper.
Scammers’ specious Siren songs have success only with the injudicious. They need their victims, hungry for snap solutions or ill-gotten gains, to be unwitting accomplices to their own bilking!
Dupes, who will believe and broadcast the liar’s unchallenged and unproven fictions and claims, become an acolyte of their own skinner!
