Do the research, know the facts

This morning I opened my Facebook page to find a posting from a man who identifies himself as belonging to a specific Christian sect.

His message was that the Bible teaches that “no woman can tell a man what to do.”

He goes on to make reference to the U.S. Constitution to solidify his reason for not voting for Secretary Clinton.

Really?

How this piece of information got on my page mystified me until I looked closer and saw that one of my so-called Facebook friends had re-posted it on his page.

He had copied it from another of his FBF (Facebook Friends) and I’m sure that some others of his friends will be copying it and sending it on as one of the “facts” that the internet “truthifies”  minute to minute, posting to posting.

The internet, as wonderfully resourceful as it is, also is problematic as is the pitifully uninformed reference to the United States Constitution.

He and his minions may vote for whomever they chose but I take issue with their references to the Constitution.

Big time.

Why?

So, here is one of the knotty problems we face today.

First, we are a pluralistic society. We don’t have to point to recent immigrants for that pluralism, we have plenty of home grown differences with which to deal.

The basis of the accommodation for pluralism is the idea that we all obey the same laws and  share a respect for our differences based on an acknowledgement that we are more alike than different.

And then there is the niggly thing called truth.

Yes, I know, truth is in the eye of the beholder. But at some level truth is verifiable, not just subjectively but objectively.

Let’s say that  I say in public, “Your mother wears combat boots,” and then deny that I said it.

I’m pretty sure that would be an objective lie on my part, but today, with the instantaneous power of the media and the abject failure of print and electronic news reporting to maintain a neutral position on most topics, we are faced with the everyday artifact of group truth, i.e.to quote the comedian Flip Wilson, “A lie is as good as the truth as long as you can get someone to believe it.”

Now the female subjugation fellow wasn’t lying, he was sharing his truth, much the same as someone who believes that he should sacrifice a goat in the middle of the road to appease evil spirits.

We do not and hopefully will not subscribe to either of these truths, but rather gather around  the law, our Constitution to tease out that, in fact,  “all men” includes the gender known as women.

Goats are on their own.

The Constitution is like any document, the product of its writers and their time.

We can point to many challenges to modern thinking that were written into that document. Most of us, and I am so hoping that I am not overstating this, do not believe that people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves from Africa, are only 3/5th of a human being.

Nor, do we apply, at least I don’t, for letters of Marque and Reprisal (pirates licenses).

While both of these have to be viewed within the context of the times, e.g.  In the first instance, the issues of representation and taxation were ascendant and in the second,  privateers substituted for a navy.

The writers of the Constitution were cognizant of the need for change and wrote in a process of amendment that allows for that change, the first changes being the Bill of Rights, which were also the product of the times and colored with the sensibilities of those times.

Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment and the right to vote was guaranteed to all without reference to  race, creed or former condition of servitude.

No mention here for voting rights for the distaff side of any race. It was not until 1919 that women were given the right to vote by the 19th Amendment. Until then gender isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, despite the fact that Abigail asked John to ”remember the ladies.”

There is the truth of the Constitution, its words, its intent and its processes.

Despite its failure to acknowledge half of the population of the country, nowhere in that document does it imply that women are to be subservient to men.

So, if we are searching for an objective measure for what is true in a pluralistic society, we have that.

There is a lot of Constitution reference on the internet and in the print and electronic media these days.

If you listen and watch and have even a modest knowledge of that document, you will quickly come to the conclusion that most who are using the Constitution to bolster their arguments haven’t a clue about what that document says.

I guess I’ll have to be more choosey about who posts on my Facebook page or undertake a mass education of those who post there.