What Can We Learn From Ferguson?

What can we learn from the riots? No, I did not say what can we learn from the grand jury’s verdict. The verdict is not the issue, it’s the response to the grand jury verdict that’s the issue.

Those with a sinister agenda keep telling us that there is a racial divide in this country. What they fail to proclaim is that this so-called racial divide is the result of a larger and more profound issue of a moral divide.

For example, let’s begin here. If you say there is a racial divide, then you are making a moral judgment – regarding racism, hatred, injustice, etc. You cannot escape the moral implications. You cannot try to remain neutral and not make a moral determination.  Therefore, your moral judgment can either be right or wrong, not neutral. 

When listening to the news or anything for that matter, one begins with a “personal perception.”  One’s personal perception is always subjective. No two people will have the same exact personal perception of a news story they hear or read about. All information becomes filtered through our hearts and minds. Our education, world-view, belief system, upbringing, etc., all play a role in our personal perception.

Here’s the deal.  So often our personal perception of things is wrong. We do not have all the facts, so we perceive truth based on what we can and believe to be true.  This would be called subjective truth. Truth that is perceived by people personally based on their perception.

But, if we are truly interested in the truth and getting reality right, we need to be concerned above and beyond our personal perception.  We need to look at the evidence or better yet, objective truth. This is truth that is outside of us. This is truth that has the power to change our personal perception. We often allow our personal perception to try to change the objective truth outside of us, but it never does. When we try this, we only reinforce our personal perception to begin with.

This is how personal perception with regards to racism works:  Many blacks see racism almost everywhere -- especially in arrest, conviction and incarceration rates, and in white police interactions with blacks. On the other hand, whites (specifically, whites who are not on the left) think that white racism has largely been conquered, and therefore blacks' disproportionately high arrest and conviction rates are the result of black behavior, particularly the high out-of-wedlock birth rate that has deprived the great majority of black children of fathers, not white racism. According to the "black-white divide" way of thinking, these are simply two conflicting perceptions.

These two perceptions are damaging for the following reason: It denies the very existence of the two pillars that every healthy society needs -- objective truth and moral truth.

For every black and every white unwilling to condemn the protests over Michael Brown's killing that took place before any relevant facts came out -- their half-hearted condemnation of the riots is saying -- truth doesn't matter. The protests, riots and liberal condemnations of the white officer began when no one knew anything substantial about the killing, except what was revealed in the news.

There is, then, some validity to this notion of blacks and whites having different perceptions. But when the truth is knowable, one of the "perceptions" has to be wrong.   You cannot have two “perceptions” that are right. 

Blacks and Whites may have different perceptions of musical beauty or of what foods they like. But this is not the case regarding truth, which is based on facts.  Once the facts come out, we are no longer speaking of "perceptions." We are speaking of truth and falsehood.

What we learn from Ferguson is that objective truth does not exist in the minds of the rioters and looters. What does exist are only “perceptions” of the truth.

Why is this alarming? Just take a look at the results:  Riots, destruction, hatred, injuries, intimidation, killing, basically lawlessness.

You see, without there being an objective truth for people to test their perceptions on, the results will be civil chaos. This is exactly what liberals are teaching in the news and what liberal universities are giving degrees in.

The left is philosophically deconstructionist. Shakespeare doesn't say what he wrote, Shakespeare says what the reader perceives. The notion of "original intent" as applied to the Constitution is, to the left, absurd. We cannot know the original intent. It's all a matter of individual perception -- or, more precisely, the perception of different socioeconomic classes, different genders and different races. 

By the way, this satanic mindset has found its way in the church.  It is not uncommon for a small group leader say to his or her students: “What are your thoughts about this passage?” From there the group shares several different renderings and meanings. The small group leader then says, “Good!  Let’s move on to the next passage.”  To this small group leader, what’s important is not trying to discover the intent of the bible passage, but the sharing of the member’s perceptions.  This is worldly and demonic and it teaches members in the church that objective truth is not important only people’s perceptions.  "Good" and "evil" are individual or societal preferences. No more, no less.

Like truth, morality is just a perception, one determined by an individual's race, gender, and/or class. That is why, for the left, no man can judge any abortion, no matter how late in pregnancy and no matter the reason -- because men do not possess a uterus.

So who are you, white man, to condemn black protests? You have your perceptions and they have theirs. What you have to do is what the Los Angeles Times did during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, during which 53 people died as a result of black rioting -- including 41 by shooting, four in fires, three by beating and two in stabbings. The Times titled its special section each day with these words: "Understanding the Riots."

So, since there were riots following the Ferguson's Grand Jury decision, we'll know how to behave: no judgment, just understanding. After all, there is no truth; there are only perceptions. 

So what do we learn from all this? Personal perception minus objective truth leads to civil unrest. This will only get worse.