Paul Grenelle
Ahh… the teachable moment. That magical moment of providence when God provides just the right conditions for people to learn a valuable concept. As a former middle school teacher of 3 years, I’ve learned to treasure these infrequent moments by taking full advantage of them when they materialize. And wouldn’t you know it? Right in the middle of our campaign to fight for truth, God uses the media and the Democrats to provide us with a teachable moment. Let me explain. We had ourselves an election about 10 days ago and the media has decided that it has become the arbiter of truth and power in this country by declaring that Joe Biden is the new President elect. Sounds fancy. So Biden and the Democrats decided to get fancy wallpapers and banners, hold fancy meetings with people and talk to foreign leaders like he’s the next President. Except he’s not the next President, at least not yet. And herein is the teachable moment: we are not ruled by a person or an organization, “We the people” are lead by The Constitution of the United States. So, the media doesn’t get to declare anything. They aren’t in charge. The media may think they are in charge but then again they also think that we have an infinite number of genders. You know, because they “follow science”. The mere fact that they have a “decision desk” shows the hubris of this clown show we call the news. But not only does this media “emperor” have no clothes, he has no kingdom. In fact, he’s just an arrogant, loud, crazy man screaming at the clouds.
So the media wants to position themselves as the authority of facts. This logical fallacy is called an appeal to false authority. This is the fallacy when someone appeals to a person they call an expert who is really not an expert. The media expects you to believe them because they are famous and have self appointed titles and are thus self appointed experts. And you just need to “trust the experts”. This is a common logical fallacy that we need to be quick to spot. Just because someone has PhD or any other combination of alphabet soup after their name does not make them and expert. Or just because someone is the director of, let’s say, the Center for Antiracist Research at a prestigious university doesn’t mean he actually knows what racism really is. Just because someone is a healthcare expert or epidemiologist doesn’t mean they know how to reduce a pandemic. Did we all learn something from MaskGate 2020? Anytime someone tries to put themselves forward as an expert we need to be Bereans and check their facts to see if they correspond with actual truth. And we use the only truth out there and that is the Word of God.
When we use the Word of God we come across the way we should view these claims.
Proverbs 18:17– The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
So the self proclaimed experts consisting of the media and Biden have claimed victory. They have come out first and made their case. So let’s cross examine.
Has any state certified their results?
- As of this writing, no not one has. So no actual vote count is real yet.
Do the states elect the President?
- Actually not really. The states elect electors from the state who actually then cast the vote for the president on behalf of the state. This seems tedious but it is important.
When does the Electoral College meet to actually elect the next President?
- Now here is the key, they actually try to solve all disputes by December 8th, and then they cast their votes on December 14th.
So why do we usually declare a victor before this?
- Well in most elections it is clear who the winner is and thus the opponent usually concedes. In the case of a concession, no other viable challenger exists and we can safely call that person the President elect. That is why the media is writing article after article and barking report after report trying to get Trump to concede.
Have we ever been in this situation before?
- Actually yes, several times. Most recently would be in 2000 when the media, in their omniscience, dubbed Al Gore the next President. For 37 days it was celebrated that way, until it turned out that George W. Bush actually won the Presidency. And we were all thankful to have a President that would condemn actual terrorism on 9/11 instead of one that would’ve been more concerned about if the planes hit an endangered spotted owl before plummeting into the twin towers.
So there we have it. A simple look at the Constitution shows us that, because of the current disagreement in the vote counts, Biden has no legitimate claim to President-elect. Now it is the case that he could very well make that claim if President Trump concedes or if the courts finally cut through this Gordian knot of voting irregularities in key battleground states and declares a winner. But until such a time, according to the Constitution, Biden is still just a Presidential candidate. Maybe he really is the projected winner, but that’s just an educated guess.
But does President Trump have a legitimate reason for making accusations of fraud? Well, the simple answer is that we don’t know right now. We have signed affidavits touting voting procedure irregularities and admitted computer glitches. We certainly have enough evidence to investigate but we haven’t heard all the evidence needed to decide. The Bible conveniently speaks to this too.
Proverbs 18:13– If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
Now if only we had a process in the United States where we could bring all the evidence we think may show a crime and then have people examine the evidence to make a determination as to its legitimacy. I’ve got it, prime time TV! Wait that doesn’t sound right. Oh, let’s post it all on social media! Hmm, still doesn’t seem like it will work. Ok, maybe, and hear me out, we should use a judicial system to take on this task. I know, I tend to think outside the box.
But our media doesn’t let the facts confuse the issue. The issue they have is “orange man bad”. The greater more cynical issue they have is that they want to be your brain and your conscience. They want to tell you the information you should know and they want to tell you how you should think about it. And if you don’t fall in line then they seek to shame and silence you. This is done by labeling people “conspiracy theorists” and by constantly slapping warning labels on and blocking your posts on social media. They want you to feel like you’re crazy and they want the world to call you crazy.
So why do we care about this as Christians. If your primary reason for caring is because your candidate might lose then your motives are wrong. This isn’t about winning. This is about truth. As Christians we vote for our candidate and submit to our leaders as appropriate, even if our candidate didn’t win, but we always fight for truth. Again Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Truth is the very character of God and thus when people violate truth, then they violate the character of God. And we should care deeply about how the character of God is handled. So when there exists a contingent of cohorts that seem to make a profession out of distorting truth and suppressing others from declaring truth, we then should care very deeply.
As I said before, this is a teachable moment, but it is not the only moment where the media has tried to become the arbiter of truth and conscience. This is the same media that thinks they can tell you when a fetus become a real person with rights to life. This is the media that tells you that 2+2 may equal 5. This is the same media that says your religion should be a personal decision that is neither apparent nor applied to others. This is the same media that says you’re a racist, not because of the content of your character, but because of the color of your skin. Yes, this media who contends that all that is wrong with America today can be traced to the Western Christian belief system. This is the media that is blurring yet another line of truth in favor of their narrative and besmirching the character of God almighty.
So how do we respond? Again, it’s a simple answer that is hard to implement. We fight for truth. We fight for truth because truth is found in the character of God. We learn to recognize and resist logical fallacies like appeals to false authority. We demand that our leaders and our influencers hold fast to objective Biblically based truth. We become Bereans, who never just accept a truth claim without checking the facts. We stop believing experts blindly, even ones that write for “Big Eva” Christian blogs, and instead we research for ourselves. We look at statements and see if they correspond to reality. And we always weigh statements against the standard of truth, God’s Word. We commit to the hard task of seeking out truth. When the media calls us crazy we stand firm. We don’t lob rocks at the other side but we do declare truth with a stiff back and a full voice. We do this because standing for truth is standing for the character of God, and God is worth it. Truth is on our side because God is on our side. And if God is on our side then who can stand against us.