Purposeful Misdirection is Not Patriotic

A while ago, after reading The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, I went on an information free diet and it made me very happy. I would tune out the political nonsense in the world, get news as it is supposed to be given (reported, not assessed on a 24 hour cycle), and live in absolute bliss.

But I've broken my diet recently, and it has done nothing but make me angry.

I come from a pretty conservative family (you can count the number of liberals on one hand, and most likely, you can almost do the same with the number of both moderates and liberals), and they often post things on Facebook in which the authors are purposefully misleading them. It is exhausting trying to continuously inform and correct such tripe. Before getting back on that info free diet again, I'll walk you through an example.

Five Military Members Killed In Chattanooga 

On Thursday, July 16, Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist, Lance Cpl. Squire D. "Skip" Wells, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith were gunned down by Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez at two military centers in Chattanooga, TN. You can view President Obama's condolences to families of those killed below.

This is very bad news. Like the massacre in Charleston, SC, nobody likes to read about these kind of events because they are so disheartening. We all wonder what could be done to prevent future events like this from happening, and we begin an endless and seemingly futile debate of less/same/more gun restrictions. This debate will not get resolved anytime soon.

Turning a Tragedy Into a Travesty

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The first part prohibits the establishment of an official church or sect in the United States. That means, much to many of your chagrin, that America is not a Christian Nation, nor was it ever intended to be by our forefathers. To strive for such would be unconstitutional, and, quite frankly, unpatriotic. As Americans, we must welcome all forms of religion, even if they go against our own beliefs.

Religions have extremists. As much as Christians want to disassociate themselves with Westboro Baptist or the KKK, they both stem from the Christian faith, and should be labeled as extreme. Likewise, there are Islamic extremists, which many ignorant Americans associate with the entirety of Islam. It is as ignorant as it would be to assume all Christianity is just like the KKK.

The conclusion of Ramadan happened on Friday, July 17th, and the president released a statement of the occasion on the day prior. Here was part of that statement:

As Muslim Americans celebrate Eid across America, the holiday is a reminder to every American of the importance of respecting those of all faiths and beliefs. 

 That is a powerful message. Imagine if there were no extremists within the different religions and we could all have this mutual respect. This is not a message that breeds hate or fuels fear among the American people. It is very constitutional and patriotic.

The Inappropriate Message

What kind of message will you read about at Newsmax, from Allen B. West, or from the Conservative Tribune among many others? Their message, if you don't care to read (which I had trouble doing), was to link the message Obama had to Muslim Americans directly to the shootings, leave out his actual message about the shootings entirely, and in some cases claim that he had no message for the families of the victims. This is a travesty. 

These people prey on those that don't read or research any further. They prey on people who want reasons to hate Obama. These messages fuel that hate. And they do it through purposeful misdirection. These people are the furthest thing from patriotic. Indeed, they are a stain on this country. Many of you fuel the hate even further by posting this stuff on Facebook.

Please stop.