By Thomas Benke
As a lawyer I am often tasked with persuading judges or other “finders of fact” that my client’s view of the world is the correct and decisive view. The mantra “description is prescription” – the idea that by controlling the description of events a person can control the outcome of any dispute – is always at the forefront of my advocacy.
I recognize this principle in all aspects of life, particularly in the domestic strife we are experiencing in the United States but also in “the great game” of international hegemony.
For example, some Portlanders recently rallied to a husband and wife who are being forcibly evicted from their home. These protesters are advocating for reform in the mortgage industry and for the recognition of housing as a basic human right. As it turns out, the homeowners had borrowed money against a home that had been in their family for generations and then refused to pay it back. The homeowners have asserted their “sovereign citizen” belief that only God’s law applies to them and that the courts have no jurisdiction over them or their debts. Would those Portland protesters have rallied if they had known why the husband and wife were being evicted?
In 1996 a lone terrorist bombed the Atlanta Olympics, killing two people and maiming hundreds. This man also bombed two abortion clinics before fleeing to a very conservative, anti-government community for protection. He openly admitted to bombing the abortion clinics (but not the Olympic bombing) and the religiously conservative community predictably rallied to his anti-abortion cause, hiding him from the authorities and otherwise supporting him. Would those good citizens have rallied had they known that the bomber had indiscriminately attacked hundreds of people at the Olympics? (In fact, once this became generally known the community turned the man over to the authorities.)
When we are called to judge, to support or protest, the actions of any individual, citizen group, or nation state, we should always keep in mind that we may not know “…the rest of the story”. We might say in retrospect “Had I only known…” The converse is also true, that we might be aware of facts that would change the minds of those with whom we disagree. This is why we, the Portland-Khabarovsk Sister City Association, must always strive for greater discourse with those people or communities with whom we disagree. International relations are not confined to court rooms where “finality” is valued above all else. Let’s keep talking, shall we?
Bobby Hickey
Excellent post. Vigorous and fact-based discourse is essential to progress. The segue to ‘if I had only known’ is ‘I should have known’. Too much of current discourse sits on the weak foundation of misinformation and intellectual laziness. Although now retired, in my prior work as a financial analyst and software engineer, the well-understood mantra was ‘garbage in, garbage out’. Failure to do the hard work of getting all the facts leads to bad outcomes. A quote attributed to several Americans over the past 100 years or so goes like this: “It’s not what you don’t know that bothers me, but what you know that just ain’t so.” We can do better.