This will be a short post.
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted again this week. In the United States judicial system all Americans are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, in a court of law. But most Americans are already convinced of Trump’s guilt or innocence without knowing all the facts.
The plea here is, PLEASE get informed. Read the indictment. The document is forty-five pages of mostly double-spaced type, and it should take 40-50 minutes to go completely through it. I re-read certain sections and still finished in less than an hour. This is an important read.
So, PLEASE get informed. Don’t listen to ten minutes of Fox News, or CNN, and decide upon the validity of the indictment against the former president. You cannot get the entire story from network soundbites, where so-called journalists are shaping your opinions with their own.
Investing a few minutes of time will give you full knowledge of the work that has gone on for the past many months, and you can make informed decisions about the importance and validity of that work. This is an important time in our nation’s history, and a small investment of time by its citizens can lead to a more informed response. Whatever your response, let it be YOUR response.
How many emails do you get from friends that share a meme that you don’t find humorous, or express a political view with which you may not agree? How often are the senders really informed with well-thought-out opinions that are documented with facts, and how often are they simply retelling some theory that they heard from an undocumented Internet source? How often do you hear conspiracy theories that are easily disproved with just a little bit of investigation? Do those notes sway your opinion, or do they simply make you angry?
Like the obscene political flags that some people fly in their yards. Do those displayed obscenities sway your opinion, or do they just speak more about the person who displays them?
I have had discussions with people about constitutional issues where it is not uncommon to hear “Well, I haven’t had time to really READ the entire Constitution, but I know….”
The Constitution is six pages long, and that includes the Bill of Rights, which was added four years later. Maybe we should all take 15 minutes and read that document, as well.
The hope here is that if Americans were a little more informed and a little less infatuated with their slanted, 24-hour TV news source, whether it be liberal or conservative, the representatives that get elected may actually represent their constituents a little more effectively.
Thomas Jefferson said, ““The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.” Let us take his advice.
Here is a link to the full copy of the indictment that was released on August 1:
https://www.scribd.com/document/662462402/Trump-Indictment#fullscreen&from_embed
I hope you will take a few minutes to read it. And don’t forget the Constitution.
Curt MacRae, lives in Coldwater, MI, and publishes rants on rant-able topics at this site.
All published posts are tweeted (@curtmacrae) — comments to rantsbymac@gmail.com
