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Reality is Not Up For Debate

What we’ve got here is, failure to communicate…

Friend, I know you think I’m resistant to engage with you because I’m intolerant or because I’m unwilling to entertain someone else’s viewpoint—but that isn’t accurate.

The idea that I refuse to welcome you or anyone else to the table because you disagree with me, is simply fake news.

I’m do my best to be a reasonable human being, I’ve never shied away from open dialogue, and I understand that others have a valid perspective that is different from my own; one filled with wisdom and reason and information that are valuable. I love hearing stories that are not my own—but this is not that.

I am not opposed to conversation.
I am not averse to disagreement.
I am not intimidated by differing opinions.
I simply refuse to debate the Truth with you any more.
I will not entertain as real, something untethered from reality.

For me the Truth is not malleable, not open to interpretation, not subject to change depending on the needs of the moment—and it certainly does not yield to a President’s tweet tantrums or a Supreme Court seat or a political party’s majority. This is where the disconnect between us is right now.

I’ve noticed you like to say things like, “facts don’t care about your feelings”—unless of course those facts concern the warming of the planet, the number of handgun deaths, the corruption of this Administration, the lack of migrant crime, or the President’s actual recorded words. In these cases, you will gladly acquiesce to your feelings, joyfully bow to your theology, fully consent to your prejudices, defiantly discard the numbers and the stats and  the video evidence.

There is an alternative truth movement in this day; one that jettisons data, facts, and objective information; a truth that is subservient to a predetermined narrative. For many, this necessary story becomes the FoxNews false True North of their daily journey. From where I’m standing, this is the road you’re on—which makes navigating these difficult moments almost impossible. It is like trying to co-author nonfiction with someone composing a complete fantasy.

When two people seek to find common ground, it must be upon bedrock, not quicksand. There is no reasonable relational compromise between fact and falsehood, no meeting in the middle if reckless partisan propaganda is on one side of the divide.

I respect your road and your story, and every experience you’ve had that shapes the lens you see the world through. We all have one—I know I do.

But this has nothing to do with that. This is about you willfully ignoring something that is right in front of both of us, and then telling me that I don’t see it.

Unless you’re willing to set aside the story you want to be true for the truth in front of you, we’re going to have a really tough time.

I have lived too long and done too much work and invested too much into informing my convictions, to be gaslit into arguing with Science, with measurable data, with irrefutable evidence, with my own eyes. I will not waste my time letting myself be lied to, even by someone I know well.

The Truth is not up for debate—at least, it is not for me.

Reality is a hill worth me and this relationship dying on.

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