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Excuse Me, Can Anyone Cash this Reality Check? BY CLAUDE DUCLOUX “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” – Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
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continue to embrace the notion that truth, and our Quixotic mission to improve justice, are the most sacred of our duties as protectors of the rule of law. But everything I’ve learned about such notions proves we’re certainly not hard-wired to seek justice. Instead, we cling to false narratives which comfort us, and more importantly, disingenuously support outcomes we want. And we don’t like hearing from people who “disconfirm” our comfortable beliefs. (I read that new verb in a psychology article. I hope it catches on. It sounds polite. Wife to Husband: “I think it’s time for us to disconfirm our marriage.”)
instructed his students not to publish those six volumes until he was dead. Copernicus: brilliant and wisely torture-avoidant. Why is it that, with our astounding scientific abilities to discover and publish the truth, we instead continue to seek refuge in “closely held beliefs?” Because that is the only way we can justify the agenda which retains power. So, although we know 2 + 2 = 4, we assert that we have a right to believe that it is 7, or 11, depending on outcome served by that belief. And we dismiss the importance of the true answer with impunity. Such dismissal necessarily imperils freedom and justice. Here are two great examples: The right to vote
In an age when facts are more accessible than ever, we appear free to create our own. We watch smart people say stupid things every day. And usually in the name of “freedom.” Human history is simply awash with incredible and important discoveries by people who paid dearly for their brilliance. Easy figures come to mind: Galileo had the impudence to suggest that the earth was not the center of the universe aka “Aristotelian cosmology”—but rather, we revolved around the sun—the “Copernican heliocentric system.” This led to his prosecution by the “Holy” Inquisition, as my dear Catholic Church pronounced Copernican Theory heretical. Let me also remind you that Nicolaus Copernicus himself, who explained his theory in six detailed volumes, fearing certain condemnation (and the likelihood of very “Holy” re-education) by the Church, 28
AUSTINLAWYER | JUNE 2021
and the right to bear arms. We serve false truths in both cases to support political agendas. Despite 20 years of intense studies of voter fraud by the Brennan Center for Justice which revealed 31 proven cases over a four-year period, during which 1 billion votes were cast, our leaders, clearly shocked by such lawlessness, are creating unnecessary and unwarranted hurdles to keep you-know-who’s from voting. (In fairness, the conservative Heritage Foundation brandishes a tally of 1,312 instances of voter fraud, but that list goes back to the early 1980s, covering perhaps 10 billion total ballots, and includes such shocking “violations” as helping someone fill out a ballot.) The
creation of hurdles to voting is as shameful as it is transparent. But we don’t do “shame” anymore, do we? The famous psychologist Leon Festinger demonstrated that even when our theories are easily “disconfirmed,” we refuse to abandon them. Rather, we find ways to justify and adhere to them, finding comfort in fellow “believers.” So, while addressing the “crisis” in voter integrity, this same leadership feels completely comfortable ignoring the carnage of mass shootings in America. Take for example, during the same fouryear period of voter lawlessness which produced 31 fraudulent votes, for each one of those 31 votes, over 1,500 U.S. inhabitants have been murdered by guns (not including suicides). Hard to justify voter fraud as a civic priority, wouldn’t you say? Voter integrity? How about Congress’ constitutional duty to ensure domestic tranquility? “Sorry,” we’re told, “the Second Amendment says I get as many guns as I want.” And how do they reach that result? By also ignoring the conditional clause of the Second Amendment—requiring access to arms for a wellregulated militia, leaving only the unfettered right to bear arms. And where are the rightleaning “Originalists” in this, who say the constitution must be strictly interpreted based upon the circumstances existing when it was written—a time when
we had no army, no AR-15s, and we needed those muskets to defend the nation with “well-regulated militias” (not “volunteer,” not “medium-” or “somewhat-”regulated, but “WELL-regulated”)? Actually, the Second Amendment is much more understandable with that clause: We don’t have wellregulated militias. So we pretend it’s invisible. Sigh… In an age when facts are more accessible than ever, we appear free to create our own. We watch
