Are we living in a bubble?
It is impossible to live in a bubble of conservative ideas and views. The left agenda is everywhere.
If you watch the news, even “conservative” Fox News, you’ll hear sops thrown to the left. If you watch network TV or streaming video, you’ll be exposed to the left’s viewpoint. It is impossible to avoid.
You can see this in bias reports on the net. How many extreme left-wing news outlets are there? They are nearly impossible to find, but extreme right? Those are listed for sites that are not. When the scale is -5 to 5 and there are no 5s listed, there is something wrong.
I know that I can argue from a leftist’s perspective. I’ve been exposed to it so often that it is just part of the social zeitgeist.
You don’t need to be exposed to more of that left-wing babble; I’m positive you can do it yourself. You’re not stupid. You have access to that zeitgeist the same as I.
What I’m not willing to expose myself to is what the left is saying in their spaces. I am unable to understand how they can have the opinions they do. I can see what they are doing, I can analyze it, and I can even duplicate it. I don’t understand them.
Ally has been providing me with a glimpse into their world for years. I still don’t understand them because frequently it makes no sense to me. “How can they believe something so obviously false?” “Don’t they know that it will fail and bad things will happen?” “Why don’t they see the consequences of their actions?”
You can duplicate it, but can you understand it?
So I would ask Ally to explain. Boy, my skull is thick. She will spend hours explaining something to me, and I just don’t get it. Then it will turn out to be some simple message or phrase that had a different meaning to her than to me.
The example we use between us is our abortion arguments. In particular, the phrase “late-term abortion”.
For me, this invokes the images of babies that could survive out of the womb being ripped apart, murdered, for the sake of the woman’s wishes.
Because Ally spent so much time in Canada in her youth, she had a different definition. The definition instilled in her from that culture, one that implied a much earlier date. This led to many arguments until we reached an understanding.
It is important to note that Ally’s impression of the laws does not match my research into those laws but in no way invalidates her feelings about what the law was.
I had to open my ears and listen. And that is difficult.
When I asked Ally to start writing for GunFreeZone.net and later the Vine, I told her that she was writing articles “From Behind Enemy Lines.”
What this meant to me was that I wanted her to tell me what she was hearing on her liberal feeds, what she heard in person from the liberals she interacted with, and what she was feeling as a thinking yet left leaning person.
I missed.
There was something more critical than just reporting the facts on the ground. She was reporting how those facts were influencing the left.
The Felon!
I’ll take a subject that is not controversial for her and me. Trump has 34 felony counts.
This is true. I don’t know anybody on our side of the line that gives a damn about it because it was a kangaroo court where the verdict was predetermined and the facts and laws modified to get that result.
State law was changed and manipulated to charge Trump. This is unconstitutional.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
— U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3 [PDF], No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
— U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1
[PDF]
The prohibition, in the letter, is not to pass any law concerning, or enforcing religion, or to make any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to pass any bill of attainder, or ex post facto law; and yet the framers of the Constitution have inserted an express prohibition against passing ex post facto laws, and bills of attainder. I admit, that an ex post facto law, properly so called, is one which makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. A law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was when committed. 3d. A law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender.
—
Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390–91 (1798) (opinion of Chase, J.)[
PDF] (internal PDF pages 5–6)
What New York State did was to change the law to extend the statute of limitations and then proceed to turn a misdemeanor into a felony. Moreover, each count was for Trump’s signature. Sign a check, make a notation in his checkbook register, and that’s two counts. Paying the bill over multiple months, each month, two more counts.
So it doesn’t mean anything to us. It was a crime invented to charge Trump so that he could be stopped from becoming President a second time.
But how does a leftist view this? They don’t care. They hear, they believe, and they know he is a criminal. More importantly, they know that no criminal should ever be allowed to be the President.
He is called “the felon” by many on the left because this is part of their belief system. And if you don’t see it the way they do, then you are deranged.
Ally is here to provide that link, that grounding, that glimpse into their delusions.
FAFO?
When I first read Trump’s posts regarding the traitorous six, I heard him accuse them of a crime and provide the maximum penalty for that crime.
I heard it as a reaction to those despicable, vile, disgusting worms that were inciting rebellion in the ranks.
He never said, he never implied, and he doesn’t even say he wants them executed. He stated the maximum penalty.
It doesn’t matter how true everything I just wrote is. It doesn’t matter what his actual intentions were or what he actually does.
To the left, the only thing that matters is what they hear. And they heard him threaten to execute those six putrid tapeworms.
That is what Ally heard. Reality doesn’t matter. That is what was heard; that is what they react to.
If you don’t know and understand that reaction, then you can’t interact with those that do.
What they hear is what they remember
A principal once accused me of threatening her with physical violence over the phrase “jump down your throat”. It was never a physical threat; the phrase has always meant verbal arguments, often loud arguments. She heard a threat. She reacted as if it was a threat. It doesn’t matter the reality.
I learned this lesson the hard way many years ago. I was talking to a girl and had set up a date with her. When I arrived at the bar to pick her up for our date, she was hanging out with some friends of ours telling a story. I listened, participated, and waited for her to get done. When she got done, I asked if she was ready to go. She said no; she had decided she didn’t want to go. I told her I was disappointed in her. In her making a promise and then changing her mind at the last minute.
That simple statement, “disappointed in her”, was devastating for her. She had been abused by her mother, and one of the mental abuses her mother would heap on her was about how disappointing she was.
It didn’t matter how gentle I thought the wording was; all that mattered in our communications was what she heard.
Listen to what she says
So when Ally writes something from behind enemy lines, she is showing us what the left is saying but, more importantly, what they feel and believe.
I’m glad for her additions to The Vine of Liberty.
