[Analysis and Opinion.]
We’ve previously written about the ease with which pictures and videos can be “doctored”. . See our post of October 27, 2021. Now we have ChatGPT which can sound and write like a human. To add to all of this their thieves, malcontents and even foreign actors of all descriptions writing, posting and doing things to mislead everyone. See our post of October 27, 2021.
All of this creates significant dangers for the continuation of democracy, Why? Because, rational, civilized debate can be short-circuited causing distortions in the policy-making and election processes.
A big reason for this, is that it’s getting to the point where overly zealous, if not evil, actors can create a false narrative backed by fabricated evidence to support enactment of policies they favor and/or leaders that they prefer. Even worse, perhaps, they can manipulate situations to cause political stalemate when action is sorely needed. The public is much more likely to give up on democracy if its government cannot function.
The foregoing is but one major reason it is becoming more and more important for people to understand and use the tools that they have at their disposal to learn to tell fact from fiction, truth from manipulative lies.
This is a vast and hugely important topic. Too vast to deal with in one blog post. However, one very easy and simple tool that folks can fall back on to determine what the truth is, is to pay close attention to what happens in court cases. In short, the American legal system is one of, if not the best, and most trustworthy legal systems in the world. There are several reasons for this:
Firstly, all evidence taken in court is taken under oath—meaning that if someone is caught lying when they testify, they could go to jail. This makes truth-telling in court proceedings far more likely than in virtually any other context.
Secondly, courts have rules of evidence. These rules limit what kind of evidence a court will consider. In short, courts will only consider evidence that complies with certain existing rules that are specifically designed to increase the chance that the evidence presented and considered is factual and trustworthy.
For example, most people have heard of the hearsay rule. This rule makes generally makes the testimony of anyone who wasn’t actually present to see what happened inadmissible as evidence. In short, courts will not consider or hear the testimony of people who heard about something from someone else but weren’t there to actually see it themselves. This rule is specifically designed to exclude rumor from the courtroom. As such, the testimony one hears in court is almost always reliable in the sense that it is under oath and pertains to something that the witness in question actually saw.
Does this mean that lying doesn’t occur in court? No. Are court decisions always correct? No. However, what is said in Court is much more likely to be truthful than what you hear on the street, at a club or in the newspapers.
Also, what a court determines is based on facts as determined by either a neutral judge or a jury of the peers of the litigants. Pre-existing rules, namely the law is then applied to those facts to determine the outcome in the most objective fashion practicably possible. The whole system is designed to be fair, objective and impartial. While it is true that any man-made system is going to have flaws, improper court rulings and judgments are largely the exception rather than the rule.
Thirdly, the decisions of courts have the effect of law. Once all appeals or the time for them have lapsed or been exhausted what a court determines is the law insofar as the rights of the litigant-parties are concerned. Moreover, in many instances, a court’s judgment can be the law that applies to similarly situated other persons (even those who weren’t direct participants in the underlying court case) under what is called the principle of stare decisis. And it should be noted, that even if an error was committed, there is always the opportunity for appeal to a higher court, which also must apply the law when it decides the case.
Fourthly, the existence of any effective form of government, including a democracy such as ours, depends on a court system that is trusted by the public to objectively decide disputes between persons and entities who find themselves in disagreement with one another, or with the government. Once the public starts to distrust or disregard court rulings then civil unrest and societal chaos is sure to follow.
Fifthly, as a corollary to the fourth point, any person or organization who purposely disobeys a court order or court decision, is engaging in a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the government at least insofar as a particular court decision is concerned.
Given the foregoing, at what point, does ignoring or challenging the decision of over sixty courts, with judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, all in different states, become a general seditious challenge to the U.S. government itself? Does it matter that the court decisions in question related to their holding that Joe Biden’s election to the nation’s highest office is in 2020 was legitimate? Does it matter that those who continue to question or challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election have mostly relied on various news outlets who, in recent court proceedings, have admitted, under oath, to publishing lies about the 2020 election? Think about it. We have courts applying the law versus admitted liars, yet some folks insist on trusting the liars.
The point being made here is that peaceful resolution of the 2020 election issue and the continuation of our democracy largely depends on folks accepting the repeated and legitimately decided judgments rendered by courts all across this land. Folks who continue to vocally question the 2020 election are furthering the seditious causes of what now must be considered to be evil actors.
David Dixon Lentz
3/22/23
© Copyright 2023; David Dixon Lentz; All Rights Reserved.