Are You That Person?

On nearly a regular basis, I encounter people who “brag” that they don’t watch or pay attention to the news. Most of them will tell you this as if it’s a badge of honor. They view themselves as being above the fray or intellectually superior in some way.

I lost a very dear friend of thirty years when she suddenly became “woke” and decided to oppose Judge Roy Moore of Alabama. She lived in California and had never heard of Judge Moore until her friends enlightened her with a supposed sex scandal during his 2017 run for U.S. Senate.

I had known of Moore since early 2001 when he caused controversy by placing a Decalogue of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery. His refusal to follow a court’s removal ruling on that display caused him to be removed from the court. Later he was again removed from the court by refusing to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling on same sex marriage. Moore was not shy of creating a stir.

However, Judge Roy Moore became the test run on ruining a man’s career and the model for sexual misconduct allegations lodged against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The Moore accusations were conveniently brought forward by three women who were represented by the famous ambulance chaser, Gloria Allred. The accusations seemed to be proven by his written well wishes in a girl’s high school year book that was never forensically scrutinized. Allred would not turn over the yearbook to his counsel for inspection.

In another comparison to Justice Kavanaugh’s experience, the accusations of sexual misconduct were some thirty years after the alleged behavior. In other words, there was no “Blue Dress” to be found.

I tried explaining to my friend that yes, I knew of Judge Roy Moore and had followed his career for well over a decade. However, while I thought him to be odious, he deserved to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. A position I later took with Justice Kavanaugh and in fact wrote an editorial on the concept for the Baltimore Sun called “The Golden Thread of Our Civility.”

My friend’s California circle thought I was hateful and loathsome. And this friend of thirty years who had never said a single political thing about anything and bragged that she chose to be uninformed, responded to me “My friends can’t believe we are friends.” This was especially hurtful given the countless times I had stood up for her over the three decades of our friendship. And it was compounded because I had met many of these women and they all were vacuous and trivial.

My entire life’s work has been in Constitutional issues. I am not only informed but an avid court watcher, to the point where it’s almost a sport. I have created organizations, lobbied on Capitol Hill and in other state houses, received an award for Leadership from the California State Senate and various awards of appreciation from groups and movements around the country. I have stood up to angry mobs of people over abortion rights, book banning and the 2nd Amendment.

My joke is “I’ve Never Met a Protest I Didn’t Like.” I know what the opposition is going to do before they even do it.

But I’m not going to jump on a bandwagon when I don’t have all the information. And I’m certainly not going to condemn someone based on hearsay. Also I actually “worked” with Gloria Allred when I was Chair of the Los Angeles Coalition for Reproductive Rights and was familiar with her tactics, and her proclivity for “by any means necessary.”

I’ve also been falsely accused. One particular incident happened to me at a very young age. I was just out of high school and in a theatre company. Wallets began to go missing among the cast and crew. My response was to lock my wallet in my car. However, about five years after the thefts, I was out to dinner with a friend and he mentioned that the director of the theatre company accused me of being the thief. I was floored. If he had thought I was the thief why didn’t he confront me? Instead he let that be the narrative that everyone believed. I was so angry that I went to his house and confronted him. It was such a painful thing to be falsely accused of something I never did and to think that there were people out there who were convinced I was the thief. And that narrative damaged my reputation even while I was completely unaware of it.

This past year of Covid has shown us that ignoring information or keeping foil on our heads does us no good. It also has shown that getting as much information as possible is important to our personal lives. As Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill used to say “All politics is local.”

Eventually what happens on Capitol Hill or internationally, will make its way into your life, on some level. Right now there are people in this country who don’t understand why their gas prices have skyrocketed. Or they don’t understand the concept of supply and demand or that their electricity could go out at any moment. Or they were taken by surprise that they couldn’t find toilet paper?

How many times have I talked about a subject and had someone say “When did that happen?” How many people have I spoken with who are sorry they voted for President Biden? Or they hear about the incursion at the border and think it will have no effect on their lives? Or they end up in Facebook jail and don’t understand that free speech is being suppressed on a wide scale? Or they don’t realize just yet that their Constitutional Rights are in jeopardy?

Don’t be that person. Inform yourself. Inform those around you. Look for the facts and the truth as best you can. Don’t believe everything you’re told. Dig deeper. Don’t just spread rumors someone else told you. Find out for yourself. Go to multiple sources and compare information. Test your assumptions and challenge your own thinking. And take action when it becomes necessary to right the ship.

In other words, be an active participant in our Democracy.