Truth is something that should not be disputed. Facts are facts and truth is truth. The sky appearing blue is a fact. Gravity is a fact. It is true that if you jump from a building you will fall. We are, unfortunately, reaching a moment when facts and truth are in dispute because of the politicization of everything.
The debate over climate change is a good example. I know of no one who disputes that the climate changes. After all, we have seasons. Likewise, I know few people who are unwilling to admit that mankind might be affecting the environment. But I find it remarkable that whether the political left in America, of which the environmentalist movement is a part, thinks the world is cooling or warming, the solutions are always the same. Poor countries must stay poor and rich countries must become poor countries.
In the ongoing quest to politicize everything, it becomes more and more difficult to build consensus and acknowledge facts because many of the people championing "facts" are really championing their own version of a fact, not the actual fact. The environmentalist movement tells us we are past the precipice and a warming planet is unavoidable, but instead of embracing nuclear power or encouraging adaptation, the environmentalists bitterly cling to wind and solar power and demand we reverse a course they say cannot be reversed. The last time we relied exclusively on wind and solar power, by the way, we called it the Dark Ages.
Facts should be facts, but aggressive politicization makes it impossible to trust the political peddlers of facts. Facts are politicized because whoever controls the truth can control minds. Thus we find the president of the United States politicizing as many aspects of our lives as possible in an attempt to shape fact and control lives.
One of the unnoticed aspects of this politicization has been what is happening in the military. More and more, the Obama Administration views the American military as a place for social experimentation, not killing bad guys. The military has become a petri dish into which the Obama Administration places all the left's ideas for society at large.
To get to this point, the president had to put politically minded soldiers in charge. Over the course of President Obama's eight years, instead of putting experienced soldiers in charge, he has presided over a politicized military structure with men and women in charge who are afraid to take risks and seek, at all costs, to protect the President instead of keeping the nation safe. Thus truth collides with death.
The incident in Benghazi had to be blamed on a YouTube video and riots, instead of a planned terrorist attack because the administration was caught with its pants down on the September 11th preceding a presidential election. The truth had to be shaped and facts had to be altered to protect the precious, which is always Barack Obama.
Now, again, we are seeing political leaders within the military shaping facts and truth to protect the precious instead of the American people. A new report documents that CENTCOM, the United States Central Command, knowingly and intentionally shaped intelligence reports and public statements to make it appear the Obama Administration has been far more successful in combating ISIS than they really have been.
According to Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who sat on a task force looking to whistleblower accusations about altered intelligence reports, the actual professional intelligence analysts got the reports right, but CENTCOM altered them. The truth had to show success where the actual truth did not show success.
While the task force found no evidence White House officials pressured CENTOM to alter reports and statements, they did not have to. White House officials never pressured the IRS to harass conservative groups. They just made sure to appropriately politicize appointments and hirings so those who were put in place knew to always protect the precious.
Truth and fact should be beyond dispute. But it is harder and harder to determine truth from spin and fact from fiction. This is what happens when a political movement insists on politicizing everything to advance their agenda.
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