It feels like all the adults have left the room

It seems like recently we have been asked to rethink our core beliefs and ideals. From capitalism, religion, gender identity to racism, everything that we know and believe has been placed under scrutiny.

We are asked to believe that capitalism is evil, although free societies are characterized by the rule of law, property rights, free speech, domestic competition and free trade and have a much better record of tackling human misery than their socialist alternatives. Still, we are supposed to turn a blind eye to statistics and reality.

We are being asked to believe that our free speech is hatred if we disagree or want to discuss uncomfortable subjects.

Since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a White Minneapolis police officer, we have seen the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and now, we are being asked to believe that White people are all inherently racist, even though we've never met a Black, Hispanic or Asian person we didn't like.

We are being told to believe less white people are shot by police than black people when it is statistically clearly untrue, according to Statista.com, the NIH, Washington Post statistics and others. They all agree, twice as many Whites are shot as Blacks per year.

We are being told by the BLM movement and a slew of high ranking Democrats to believe that police departments should be defunded and disbanded while muggings and shootings have increased every weekend for the last few weeks including the murdering of children in Chicago, New York and Atlanta.

We are being told that we need to reject our history, even our heroes like Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant who fought for the freedom of our Black citizens.

In a time of history when the entire world was engaged in slavery we were the only country where White people fought White people to end Black slavery, yet those of us alive today who never owned slaves and even those of us with ancestors who never owned slaves are supposed to be inherently guilty.

Slavery is now illegal in every country, but there are still an estimated 40 million slaves worldwide, according to Global Slavery Index, 2018. Our local police departments, FBI, and ICE have all caught and prosecuted a record number of human traffickers in 2019. In fiscal year 2019, ICE recorded 2,197 arrests, 1,113 indictments, and 691 convictions.  428 victims were identified and assisted. We need to keep supporting these efforts rather than defunding them.

We are being asked to believe that people who are destroying public property and businesses are “woke,” morally superior to the rest of us, and we should take our cues from them.

Do you know what happens when you are being asked to believe and accept things that aren't true or you don’t believe to be real? Cognitive dissonance theory says it causes anxiety, mental illness, and depression. Some of us believe that the truth sets us free but we are also being asked to reject our Judeo Christian God and principles where many of our ideas about freedom and individualism were born and where we learn love, forgiveness and tolerance. It also teaches us to accept the good, the bad and the ugly in ourselves and our history and learn from it. Shame is not helpful. Conviction is, but then what should follow is action to keep fighting to make things right or better.

Sometimes it just feels like all the adults have left the room and everyone is afraid to say, “The emperor has no clothes.”

Julie Reeder can be reached by email at [email protected].