By Steve Hunley
Is it any wonder why the country is so divided, so polarized? And what happened to healing and uniting our country? That seems to have disappeared in a bubble of the purest, most poisonous, palpitating hatred I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. The left is using the incident at the Capitol for all it’s worth and let’s just be honest and put everything into perspective. The same people crying “insurrection” are the very same people who told us the “protests” elsewhere were mostly peaceful, oftentimes while buildings burned in the background. More people were killed in the “mostly peaceful protests” than during the “insurrection.” That is an indisputable fact, but you’re not likely to be reminded of it any time soon as the trifecta is now complete: the Democratic party, Big Tech, and the mainstream media all push the same narrative and now they are doing their best to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with them. For people who talk about “Nazis” as often as the leftists do, they seem not to recognize their own tendencies as totalitarians. The elimination of free speech is the first sign a free society won’t be free for very long. If you have a brain in your head EVERY totalitarian government since the beginning of time until the present, controls the media. The media is usually state-run and we have the closest thing to a state-run media than we’ve ever had in this country.
The people at CNN, for instance, who don’t report news, but rather push a narrative, irrespective of whether it is the truth or a bald-faced lie. Lately, it’s been pretty much a steady diet of bald-faced lies. The very same people who scoff at the very notion of election fraud last November are the SAME people who have insisted the 2016 election was somehow stolen by the Russians from Hillary Clinton. CNN and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC have carried around that dead horse for the last four years, even after the multi-million dollar investigation by the once-infallible Robert Mueller couldn’t produce a single shred of evidence to support the contention Trump had won the 2016 election because of Russian interference. There was interference in the 2020 election by the Chinese, the Russians, and Iranians, but do you hear anyone in the mainstream media talking or writing about it? Of course not!
Another difference in the narrative? The folks burning down businesses in Seattle, Minneapolis, and Portland were “protesters,” while those at the Capitol were “rioters.” The mainstream media has bullied, belittled and demonized law enforcement officers for the last year and suddenly they are filled with a profound concern for the officers at the Capitol. I am against ALL rioting and will always call it rioting whether it is on the right or left. I am for our law enforcement agencies and court system meting out justice to those who have broken the law equally. We’ve seen district attorneys across the country announce what laws they will not prosecute. If the Knoxville News-Sentinel is to be believed, there has been “a serious uptick in violence” in our community while we have leftist nutcakes running around calling not only for the police to be defunded, but entirely abolished. The News-Sentinel states we had a record number of murders in our community last year and some of you people want to act like the soon-to-be-candidates for the Knoxville City Council who want to defund or outright abolish the police should be treated with respect. Do you suppose a social worker holding a daisy is going to help you much as a victim of violence? If those folks have their way, you’re more likely to be pushing up daisies instead.
The uptick quote was attributed to Mayor Indya Kincannon, who seems to have about as much grasp of what to do in the city as an old maid with a shaving mug. Nor is Knox County free of public officials who don’t understand their own roles or either the city or county government. It’s no wonder so many folks are not taking masking seriously when you have so many public officials, especially those locking down everything and yet traveling, dining out and not wearing masks. Do they seem to be afraid? The fact is there are many more restaurants and bars that serve liquor by the drink inside the Knoxville city limits than in Knox County. It is not Sheriff Spangler’s responsibility to enforce any law or ordinance inside the City of Knoxville. The chief of police is not, as is Sheriff Spangler, elected by anybody. The Chief of Police of Knoxville is appointed by the city mayor and answers directly to the city mayor. Have you heard a single member of the Knox County Commission say Kincannon and the Knoxville City Council should take the cure for lockjaw and actually enforce the law? Nope, neither have I. Instead, our commissioners would rather chase each other around the table or virtually arguing about whether we need a Board of Health. The members of the Board of Health haven’t fussed about city officials being as silent as a tomb about enforcement. Let me remind you, the Knoxville News-Sentinel published a startling panorama of photos of UT students and the vibrant nightlife inside the city where there was not a single mask to be seen nor any social distancing being practiced. Who raised Cain about it? Nobody but The Knoxville Focus.
We’re sending our kids back to school and Daniel Watson, a new member of the board of education, who seems less interested in education than social justice, proposed the Board meet virtually. Mike McMillan, whose experience in government likely dates back to when Watson was in short pants and had hair on his head, reminded him the board was sending students and teachers back to school and wondered what kind of message it would send if the board members cowered at home? The commissioners might ask themselves the same question.
Twitter and Facebook have lost $51 billion in value since banning President Trump. Whether we like what someone else has to say, America has been the one place on the planet where someone had the right to say what they want, what they believe. When that right is gone, everything else worth having will be, too.
