The power of the mob is incredible — especially when that mob controls the media. Consider common (mis)perceptions about Kyle Rittenhouse and his actions last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for which he has been on trial. Commentator Candace Owens said on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday that black people have written to her and called her a race traitor for defending the teen, as they’re under the impression he killed two black men on that fateful August 25, 2020 day. (Reality: He shot only white people). The Young Turks producer and host Ana Kasparian recently admitted she was wrong in long believing that Rittenhouse had been pursuing the men he shot. (Reality: He was the one fleeing and being pursued.) This proves you can professionally comment on the news without actually knowing the news. Now we hear that billionaire investor Bill Ackman, a longtime Democrat supporter, has gone from woke to woken-up on the boy’s trial. This is for a very simple reason:
He has actually been watching the trial.
And he’s apparently struck by the chasm between its reality and mainstream media fantasy.
He made this known Thursday via a series of tweets, the first two of which are below.
Before presenting the follow-up tweets, here’s a bit of background on Ackman, courtesy of commentator Andrea Widburg:
In an era of in-your-face billionaires, Bill Ackman is a low-key guy. He founded Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund that manages assets worth over $13 billion. He’s a New Yorker and Ivy League–educated all the way, having received his B.A. and MBA at Harvard. He’s proudly Jewish and is a long-time Democrat party–supporter, having endorsed Michael Bloomberg’s short-lived run for president and donated to Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez, the DNC, and the DSCC.
Given Ackman’s Ivy League background, long history supporting the Democrat party, and reliance solely on the mainstream media, his tweets about the effect the Rittenhouse trial had on him are incredibly powerful.
As for that mainstream media matrix (MMM), Ackman writes:
Insofar as continuing to believe the MMM goes, Ackman may want to ponder poet Maya Angelou’s words: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” (Or, in the MMM’s case, at least the 187th time.)
As the billionaire was saying, however, he believes Rittenhouse will be found not guilty (continues in the tweet below)
This line of reasoning and the fanciful notion that “[j]ustice demands a fair trial” are apparently so radical that Ackman got a special phone call, as he relates below.
Note, too, the response below his above tweet. The respondent, John Hempton, is actually an Australian hedge-fund manager with an axe to grind with Ackman.
But his wasn’t the only irrational tweet. As Widburg informs, there were also accusations that
- a sophisticated, mature businessman doesn’t know what an EMT is,
- nobody of goodwill would bring an AR-15 (which, to the left, is much worse than the loaded pistol Gaige Grosskreutz aimed at Kyle’s head),
- Kyle’s crossing state lines was itself almost criminal (state lines have suddenly become important, even as the left erases our sovereign boundary on the south),
- No 17-year-old should ever be allowed out with a “semiautomatic high caliber weapon” [actually, the AR-15 is a small caliber weapon].
- There was something inherently suspect and wrong about Kyle’s daring to volunteer to protect a once-peaceful community that rioters were burning to the ground.
Again, however, this is at least partially attributable to the MMM mob’s power. Just consider the montage of deceit-replete, Soviet-style media commentary segments below.
Widburg notes how it’s fascinating that there are no Twitter replies from liberals stating “‘Wow!’ If the trial changed your mind, maybe I should check out the facts for myself instead of relying on the media.”
“Leftists don’t want to have facts interfere with the narrative,” she continues.
Put differently, we could say, loosely speaking, that there are two types of people in the world: Those who seek Truth (too few in number, lamentably) — and people content to proceed based on prejudice.
Put more precisely, it’s a continuum, as many people will seek (or at least accept) Truth except on topics where their passions run so high that their integrity is brought low.
Coming to mind here was when I encountered a schoolteacher many years ago who espoused left-wing sentiments. I presented my counter-arguments, and then offered to refer her to media sources that would provide alternative views.
Without missing a beat, she made clear she wasn’t interested.
The teacher was content with her prejudices, you see, and didn’t want her comfortably numb bubble burst. It’s ironic because leftists would, once upon a time way back when five years ago, still tout their “open-mindedness” and freedom from prejudice. In reality, though, prejudice — defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience” — epitomizes the Left.
For insofar as we don’t seek what is right, we’ll glom onto what feels right; insofar as we deny Truth, we may deify taste — maybe even taste for turpitude.
Blind to or even hostile toward Truth, leftists operate based on emotion, the realm of prejudice. And one thing is for certain: Insofar as we don’t want to know Truth, we won’t.
