As we in the United States continue the lunacy that we call the election season, I notice a certain problem—where we see many people willing to make excuses for the factions that they support in a crisis but assume the worst possible motives for the factions they oppose. That’s not to say that the factions are equally valid of course. It’s quite possible to have one faction be correct on an issue and a second be wrong. But it overlooks the possibility of people being sincere in their error, or that the difference is one of policy, not of right and wrong.
This is a behavior which Catholics cannot condone. While sometimes we might have the right to conceal a truth rightly held in confidence, we’re never permitted to spread a falsehood to benefit our friends or harm our foes. This means we need to consider the reliability and biases of our sources before repeating what we hear. Regardless what we think of Trump, Pelosi, or Ocasio-Cortez, we don’t have the right to accuse them of things we don’t know are true, even if we rightly oppose what they stand for or against.
Let’s face it. There’s a lot of news going around with the COVID-19, where people are willing to accuse Trump of crimes against humanity for wanting to end the quarantine, or accusing the Democrats of creating a dictatorship for wanting to continue it. But these accusations strike me as wanting to denigrate the opponent when there is an election at stake, not as an accurate criticism of the actual policy.
In short, we’re seeing people replace a search for truth with propaganda. And as long as we’re willing to hear the propaganda we want to hear while deriding the truth we don’t want to hear as “fake news” we are likely overlook injustice as long as it suits us… and then turn around and get angry for the other faction using those precedents we set against us. That’s the recipe for an unjust society.
A just society requires us to determine whether a claim made is true or not, and reaching a conclusion that addresses the truth we don’t want to hear. For example, what are we to make of the coronavirus quarantine when we don’t have good numbers on how virulent it is or whether our policies are “flattening the curve” as the popular saying goes? We see people in some countries lifting the quarantines and we want to know why we’re still having restrictions. Whether someone is “reckless” for wanting to lift the quarantine or “totalitarian” for wanting to be more cautious depends on the truth of how dangerous or benign the coronavirus is. Our preference for one party or another doesn’t allow us to “shade” the truth to our favor.
Regardless of our political preferences, we have an obligation to make sure that our defenses for our faction or accusations against the opposing faction are truth. If they’re not truth, we must not use them. If we’re not sure if they’re true, we must not present them as if they are true. We must not rely on the mindset of “I wouldn’t put it past him/her.” Anti-Catholics have come up with all sorts of slanders against us based on that way of thinking. And since we must not do unto others what we do not want them to do to us, assuming guilt based on what we think someone is capable of is rash judgment.
In saying this, I’m not advocating the misuse of Matthew 7:1 where people think not judging means “let them do whatever they want.” I mean we must not assume guilt without actual evidence of guilt, nor assume motive without proof that this is the actual motive.
Some people might protest, saying “we’ll never prove anything that way!” But these people should realize how they sound when they say that. This is saying that suspicion is good enough to convict when this is exactly what Our Lord condemns when He says not to judge. Our conspiracy theories—no, not only nuts follow them—are not proof of wrongdoing.
That doesn’t mean passivity in the face of wrongdoing. But it does mean that we must avoid begging the question where the “proof” we used to justify our accusations depend entirely on the accusation being true in the first place.
Yes, our politicians seem to be a disreputable bunch nowadays. But that in itself is not proof of wrongdoing. And even if one is guilty of wrongdoing, we must not impute the motives that are based on how we see their character. We must determine the truth before judging… even if nobody else does, because we profess to be Christians, and the God we know, love, and serve forbids us to do otherwise.
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