Truth Dies in Darkness
/By: Lt. Joseph Pangaro, CSO, CPM
The feeling of danger is palatable. We all live with it. Some of us feel it more as a constant presence because of where we live or work and others feel it when they have to leave the relative safety of their homes for any other reason.
The never ending threat of being robbed, attacked, or otherwise brutalized has been crystalized in recent days by the very public and brutal murder of an innocent young woman from Ukraine who came to America for a better life. Her throat cut while sitting on a train doing nothing to deserve her fate.
The school shootings we see all across the USA on a regular basis makes us nervous and afraid to send our children to school, and the devastating live action murder of Charlie Kirk at the University of Utah sent shock waves across the country.
These horrific events and many more that are less publicized but are just as terrible take place every day at what seems like a heightened pace have left most of us shaken.
And what causes this wave of violence, death and destruction?
While I can site many reasons such as crime in general, a lack of respect for our fellow citizens, and an attitude adopted by many that they are entitled to hurt and steal because of their circumstance, there is are bigger reasons at work.
These reasons we don’t talk about so openly because to do so would open a person up to criticism for being “uncaring, racist, religious haters, cold hearted and bigoted” and any other slur that can be leveled at a person to shut them up.
In this age we find ourselves in a place where truth is shunned because it is considered hurtful, offensive to point out facts, and makes some people look bad in their choices and actions no matter how detrimental those choices are to the person themselves and everyone around them.
We are told through the popular culture that it is better to ignore truth as it makes people uncomfortable; it is better to live a lie and pretend not to see the truth than to see things as they actually are. This goes for many of today’s problems and they stand at the doorstep of leftists, liberal, socialist thinking.
While most of us have known this to be true all along we have stayed quiet in the background so as not to be targeted for recognizing actual truth and not going along with the lies being pushed on our country and people.
We have seen the era of big liberal ideas, beliefs, concepts, and theories take hold of our nation and the utter destruction these things offer in real life, defined by pools of blood and shattered lives. We have seen the power of the media, who have clearly taken sides and joined with the anti-truth crowd, to push lies, misconceptions, twisted thoughts, and illogical thinking to advance an agenda that is based on a misplaced sense of “Being nice, understanding people’s feelings”, and allowing horrendous behavior to be excused as society’s fault and not the fault those who engage in the negative behaviors.
We are suffering a mental health crisis that has added to the carnage offered by leftist beliefs and ideas. We have accepted the idea that it is better to let people live in a delusion rather than to help them cope with their problems.
We force the entire society to “Pretend” these delusions are real and to go along with them in some bizarre belief that living a lie will make it real. And voicing any opinion different than the approved version of reality can subject you to being cancelled, ostracized, called names, or shot through the throat in front of your family on a beautiful sunny afternoon in Utah.
And to demonstrate the depth to which these beliefs and concepts have overrun us, we see thousands of unhinged, morally bankrupt individuals posting on social media that the brutal murder of a man simply speaking his opinion is a great thing.
We see people dancing with joy because a voice they disagree with was silenced. Instead of debating these different ideas and opinions they revel in murder and bloodshed.
For many years we have refrained from defining this mindset so as not to offend. We ignore truth and pretend that bizarro world is real; we allow thousands of our fellow citizens to be murdered every weekend in our cities without addressing it for fear of revealing truths that would be inconvenient. And we accept the attacks on like-minded, clear thinking people, because we don’t want the evil eye of the politically correct to be focused on us.
The result of our silence; a dead woman on a train, school children shot down like animals, women sexually assaulted on a daily basis, children trafficked by evil people, and a mans voiced and life taken from him, his family and the world.
These are the results of living lies.
These lies are supported and propped up by an ideology of hate, revenge, narcissism, self-pity, self-righteousness, fear, rage, purposeful misinterpretation, manipulation of the weak in spirit and weak in mind, and the cowardice of those who see the truth, know the truth but do not speak up. This will lead to doom for all of us.
It is clear the world we are living in is suffering from the reality of this leftist ideology that has afflicted our society and many other societies across the world. We can see parallels in other western countries where these same left wing beliefs, policies, and practices have been allowed to take hold to the ruin of many people. To ignore this reality or to refuse to see it is a symptom of a much deeper problem; a problem that will affect all of us sooner or later.
How do we recover from this dark place we have found ourselves?
The answer is not hard to find, it has always been with us, but it is much harder to live because it demands we address the lies, refute the lies, and accept truth.
Let’s ask a few tough questions…
Does seeing, and speaking the truth mean we cannot be understanding and compassionate to the suffering of people who struggle with mental challenges, or those whose moral underpinnings have been damaged for decades and led to parts of our society that don’t behave and interact with the world around them appropriately?
The answer is no; we must use compassion to understand peoples struggles. But we don’t further damage them by lying to them.
Seeing and living the truth is the first step. Next comes the responsibility to heal those afflicted, help them overcome their challenges, and take concrete actions to make the world a better place.
We must commit ourselves to speaking the truth even if it offends, even if it makes us uncomfortable, even if it is interpreted as hurtful. What is more hurtful pointing out truth and helping people overcome their struggles so they can have a better life, or continuing to spout lies so they can pretend they are living a better life? And we must stand together to demand a new era built on truth, reality, decency, and love as we support the voices of truth.
Lofty goals indeed, but where has the current way of life gotten us, how has living the lies made our country a better place for all?
It hasn’t. We suffer citizens being slaughtered in the streets in American neighborhoods because we won’t confront crime and the actual sources of crime because it’s uncomfortable? How is that compassionate? How is that in the American tradition? To not address this truthfully puts the blood of innocent people on all of our hands.
How do we ignore the rule of law because criminals find themselves suffering for the consequences of their actions? Is it better to ignore the truth and allow people to destroy lives and our way of life to pretend crime cannot be stopped?
No it is not better. Human nature tells us that if we allow criminals to act as they choose, it is the innocent who will suffer and that is not a good exchange for the perceptions that criminals cannot control themselves or society made them rape, rob, and murder. We must face the truth and protect these communities from the people who would destroy them. Every citizen in every community deserves to live free and safe.
In the end the list of things we must readdress and reevaluate under the bright light of truth, and I will address them in the future, for now this piece has broached the subject.
Are you a person who wants to live truth or will you hide under a rock to protect lies?
Tonight a young woman who could be anyone’s daughter lies in her grave. A voice of a generation will never hold his wife or children again and countless other people will suffer from living lies and not facing truth. This must change.
This article originally appeared on AmericaOutLoud and is reprinted with permission of the author.
Joseph Pangaro is a 27-year veteran of law enforcement. He retired in 2013 at the rank of Lieutenant and currently serves as the Director of School Safety and Security for a large school district in NJ. He is also the owner of Pangaro Training and Management, a company that provides training to the public and private sector on a host of topics. Email: Joe@PangaroTraining.com, www.PangaroTraining.com. “The Blue Heart Webcast”www.YouTube.Com/@BlueHeartWebcast & host of “The Human Equation” at 9 PM on AmericaOutLoud. news Thursdays and Fridays.
