I assume by now that my reader has watched or read at least some of the goings on yesterday in Washington DC. Today on the news I watched our prime minister in typical lawyerly tones admit that there was much amiss with the process of investigation and outcomes of the failure to predict the intent of the killer of those three children in Southport and his other crimes on that awful day. The presentation was flat and very boring in comparison with the re-elected POTUS #47. I asked myself , "does presentation or rhetorical ability matter?" "Does it have any bearing on our voting intentions or implications for our democratic systems?" In my humble opinion the answer must be in the affirmative. The follow up therefore could be does such an ability signify competence for the chosen job; namely as a democratically elected person to further his/her political intentions and the answer to that must surely be in the negative.
There are amongst those who are all too ready to believe what to most are outlandish theories covering many walks of life. In broad terms their refusal to face fact is based on a lack of transparency from the authorities or personnel associated with the matter in question. So it could be posited that the flames of conspiracy theories are fanned by the very people who are trying to negate those who in our tech age can spread their rivers of poison to an ocean of those whose political or psychological make up renders them susceptible to all manner of mumbo jumbo. Nowhere is this more true than in the justice system because when there appears to have been drawn a curtain over some legal or illegal process additional crumbling of that pillar of our democracy takes place whether it is further shunning of local elections and/or political vacuum filling by rabble rousers. The case of Mr Justice Williams and his banning of the publication of the identity of a fellow judge and the names of those involved in the aforementioned apparent incompetence pre the Southport murders must be considered to have left a gap in the minds of some who are all too willing to fit their own theories to the known facts. A well reasoned article can be accessed here.
Perhaps the most ridiculous belief for a diminishing coterie of the unhinged is the "flat earther" There are still those who do really believe the Earth is flat. The reality of such unscientific nonsense is not confined to our age of instant information true or false; it was demonstrated in January 1875 at the trial at the Essex Assizes. A little light hearted relief might be of interest.
Belief in the outlandish is perhaps part of the human condition. There is no doubt that Aristotle was and is a towering figure amongst the billions who have lived in the last two millennia. But it took a practical man of science, Leonardo, to lay the foundations of inter alia engineering, anatomy and perspective in art to push aside theory for experiment to form the basis of much of our understanding of the modern world.
Often it`s been said that what happens in America happens in Britain a short time later. Are we on a timeline which validates such an observation? Those who seek unjustifiably to prevent public knowledge of the many drivers and levers, controls and artifices which determine the structure of our society are themselves the propagandists and initiators of those who would undermine them like the person in his ignorance on a tree branch trying to get down by sawing away the very item which is keeping him alive. Is the re-election of Donald Trump a rallying cry for reform within our society or a warning of what`s ahead?
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