The Two Starkly Different Meanings of “Black Lives Matter,” and Political Ideas That Must Never Be Criticized

"Black Lives Matter" is a simple looking phrase, but it functions as a Trojan Horse. Many people don't understand that there is a big difference between A) stating the obvious fact that Black lives do, indeed, matter and B) embracing the controversial political agenda of the Black Lives Matter organizations. Just because one believes A doesn't necessarily mean that one believes B, but this conflation flies under the radars of many people who embrace both A and B even though the only part that they have carefully considered is A.

Consider this excerpt from a recent news article about Nick Buckley, a man who has spent many years of his life helping desperate others through a charity he founded in 2011, Mancunian Way, based in Manchester, England. The problem started when Nick dared to write an article:

In the article the 52-year-old started by saying: “Of course black lives matter. Let’s get this obvious point over and done with at the beginning”, but went on to criticise the political agenda of the organisation BLM which sought to repudiate the values expressed by Martin Luther King.

I am sympathetic to Nick Buckley's clearly stated concerns. Like Buckley, I am concerned that some of the political ends of BLM sharply conflict with the wisdom of Martin Luther King. The fact that Nick Buckley dared to speak up about this critical issue cost him his job and that is a tragedy.

In some circles, the phrase "Black Lives Matter" has taken on the status of an unassailable fundamentalist religion, which is extremely unfortunate. Whenever this phrase is uttered, we should be asking whether the speaker is asserting A, B or both A and B.  Whereas A is self-evident truth to me, B is a complex set of ideas, many of them ill-defined and/or problematic.

Every idea, especially every political idea, should be open to vigorous criticism and discussion. There should be no exceptions, for the reasons carefully stated by John Stuart Mill in his work, On Liberty. To every claim I respond: "Let's test it." To the extent that any ideas are declared to be sacrosanct, off-limits to discussion and criticism based on science, statistical analyses and the diverse wisdom collected by thinking people from the beginning of time, our democracies are dead.

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Let’s Apply the Drunk Driving Argument to This Pandemic Pool Party

Take a look at this crowded bar Memorial Day weekend at Lake of the Ozarks.

I’m going to assume that most of the people in this picture are drinking. I’m also going to assume that some of the people in this picture will leave this party intoxicated yet believe they’re ok to drive. I’m going to assume every single person in this picture arrived home safely.

What would your conclusion be if all the above were true? Would you conclude that because none of the intoxicated people in this crowd got into a car wreck afterward, that drunk driving is ok? Would you think that maybe we don’t need laws forbidding drunk driving? Or, would you conclude that the intoxicated drivers were damned lucky, because intoxicated driving clearly increases your chances of causing an accident and killing yourself and others?

Here’s another possible outcome: One of the men driving home was pretty hammered. After getting onto the highway, he realized that he shouldn’t be driving. He kept losing his focus and had some trouble staying in his lane. When he arrived home, he breathed a sigh of relief. No harm, no foul.  Unbeknownst to this man, a woman driving in the lane next to him on the highway was trying to get home from her shift at the hospital. She was a nurse tired from another long day. When his car drifted over into her lane, she was forced to swerve, causing her car to roll down an embankment. She is severely injured and may not survive.

The man who is breathing a sigh of relief that he got home safely, he has no idea what his actions caused. He may never know.

Now let’s look at this picture again, knowing this photo was taken during the pandemic. It’s entirely possible that everyone left this bar feeling good and that all of them continue living a healthy happy life. It’s quite possible, however, that two or three of these people at the bar were infected but had no symptoms. It’s also entirely possible that one of these asymptomatic people talked to three other women while waiting in line in the crowded ladies’ room. As they laugh about the goofy bartender, some infected droplets spray from her mouth and onto the others. After they go home, two of them get sick. Before one of them had symptoms, she visited her elderly mother a few days later. Her mother ended up on a ventilator and died a week later.

I keep hearing, “everyone is going to die of something.” That’s 100% true. A lot of people die in car accidents, with or without intoxication involved.

But the reason we enact laws for public safety is to reduce the risk of harming or killing other people. Wearing a mask in public during a pandemic is as practical and important as NOT drinking and driving, or taking the keys away from someone who drank too much.

Wearing a mask in public is like taking the car keys away from someone who drank too much.
There’s an even more compelling reason to social distance and wear a mask. The man who got home safely, may wake up the next morning and recognize how lucky he is. He may vow to never again drink and drive. Should that happen, he will never have or cause a wreck due to intoxication.

The woman who unknowingly passed the virus to the ladies in the restroom may see how quickly it’s spreading in her community and decide she’s now going to be more careful. She vows to keep a social distance, wear a mask in public, and do what she can to keep others safe. Even if she does that starting now, the people she infected last night can continue spreading the virus, exponentially. The two people she infected can spread it to four, and those four can spread it to eight and so on.

So why would we intervene to prevent death by drunk driving but not intervene to prevent death by social distancing and wearing masks in public? https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812864  In 2019, “only” about 10,000 people died as a result of drunk driving, but most of us feel compelled to strictly enforce the law to prevent those needless deaths. No one complains about the government violating their constitutional rights by enacting drunk driving laws.

As I finish writing this article, ten times as many people, more than 100,000 people, have died as a result of COVID-19 in just few months, with many other people barely hanging on. It’s far more deadly than drunk driving.

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The above video is on Snapchat in the Lake of the Ozarks? Unreal. What are we doing?

pic.twitter.com/m0qsEQ4KLp

— Max Baker (@maxbaker_15) May 24, 2020

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On Fragility of Memory and on Picking Friends

From "The Reality of Illusory Memories," by Elizabeth Loftus, et al (1995).

The fragility of memory in real-life settings has been simulated in the interference studies of the last two decades. In these studies, subjects first witness a complex event such as a simulated violent crime or an automobile accident. Sometime later, half of the subjects receive misleading information about the event, while the other half do not. . . . With a little help from misinformation, subjects have recalled seeing stop signs when they were actually yield signs, hammers when they were actually screwdrivers, and curly-haired culprits when they actually had straight hair. Subjects have also recalled nonexistent items such as broken glass, tape recorders, and even something as large and conspicuous as a barn in a scene that contained no buildings at all.

These finding are critically important, both on a cultural scale and in our individual lives. This is why it is so important to choose friends who will challenge us and question not only our assumptions but also our perceptions, our FACTS. Our memories become sick and dysfunctional to the extent that we spend time with people who want to bask in the cozy warmth of agreeableness, who crave loyal tribal friendship more than truth. We need friends who (lovingly) challenge us when we most want them to agree with us.

Next time you crave someone to agree with you on politics, religion or your belief that someone has treated you unfairly, choose your audience wisely. Don't choose a friend who simply wants to make you feel happy and supported. Choose friends who will put you under the spotlight.

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Read more about the article A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

A 2,500 Year Old Warning About Our President

Aesop had a tale that is quite apropos right now: The Frogs Desiring a King (a.k.a "King Log and King Stork") is about a group clamoring for a strong handed leader, someone to declare moral rules and enforce them on the people. The Republicans (the party currently wanting to have government enforce ones personal morality, especially in the bedroom) chose Trump (as amoral an individual who ever took the proverbial throne) and somehow got him into power. Splash. The Democrats, aghast at the dangerous ignorance and exemplary incompetence of this purported moral leader, strive to have him impeached; to oust this King Log. So who would be our King Stork? Pence, a man who is neither uneducated nor incompetent. One who is actually a willing enforcer of a particular moral code, a one size fits all set of rules that most Americans don't actually live by, but some few vocal ones want to enforce it on everyone. This, despite the constitutional prohibition about the government enforcing the moral codes of a particular religion, is why he had the second seat next to the regularly bankrupt (both morally and financially) head of state. So, from frying pan into fire?

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