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The Eternal Quest: What is Truth?

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Mankind, from time immemorial, has been a seeker of Truth.

Civilizations from the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, and the Mesopotamians to the modern roman empire have searched their world for Truth.   While earlier civilizations sought simpler Truths in their limited world view, our advanced ‘modern,’ society seeks more complexities using far different tools with the same boundless curiosity.

Before the modern era, men and women looked for truth in different ways.  Young men would set off with the armies and sea traders of their time in search for the answer to the burning desire in their souls, are the stories true?  Is there really a whole world to explore?  Are their great sea monsters as my grandfather told me?

Others, somewhat less adventurous and more academic, looked to the mysteries of alchemy or spiritual quests and tempted God by turning base lead in to Gold, worshiping false idols or seeking solace in the quiet spaces of monasteries and remote faith communities; all with an eye to Truth.  Can gold be made from base metals?  Is God, Allah, or Yahweh found in the wilderness or among men in our world? Can we hear the voice of God? How do we reconcile God in our lives?

Amidst the spread of civilization and the rise of the ages or reason and industrialization and technology, the quest for knowledge was not easily satiated with the greater good not always lining up with Truth but rather diversion and deception with Truth often being a casualty.

Most significantly the rise of the internet and information technologies has led to an increased pace of extremism with the left and right seeing greater division and the perceived requirement that there can be no reason or good discussion betwixt the ends of the spectrum.

We have seen this in far greater concentration since 2001 after the events of 911 with so-called conspiracy theories rising immediately.  Building on the momentum of the discoveries during that time, previous histories for events dating back to the great depression were released through various sources and previous ‘Truths,’ were contradicted and influenced by current global motivations.

If we consider the current Covid19 crisis, our sources of information can be mainstream media like CNN, ABC, NBC or the BBC or Al Jazeera or Fox.  Online, websites like beforeitsnews.com or outofmind.com or web presences of regular news broadcasts can inform readers in many ways.  In Canada, we look to the Rebel, CBC, CTV, or regular web news from browsers.

Our newspapers are no longer the haven of true current affairs.  Due to shrinking subscribership and advertising, there is no longer space to present multiple viewpoints for decision making. The issue of news bias is also a concern in many countries with censorship rising its ugly red pen.

Our social media world is rife with censorship.  YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook now all regularly delete content not in keeping with ‘community’ standards.  In the US election, many news items from both parties are not given equal treatment while in Canada, many anti-corruption and scandal news items are also given less than fair access to the public or have been deleted.

In the US, Q Anon has been teasing readers with more than 1500 entries filled with coded information seemingly educating readers on current affairs filled with details accurate enough to suggest an inside source.

The BIG questions are simple:  Is Covid 19 a hoax?  Is it real?  Has it been created by the mythical illuminati?  Do masks work?  Will a vaccine come in our lifetime?   Who is responsible for the patients care or payments IF the proposed vaccines do not work?  Or is it as dangerous to humanity and the draconian measures imposed are necessary to protect mankind?  Is the total makeover of society required to protect us?  Are lockdowns and economic control the answer to a biological condition?

Closely tied to the pandemic question is that of the politicians who want to see those behind the scenes brought to justice for their parts in various international crimes including Child trafficking, international drug trafficking, influence peddling, population control and other crimes against humanity.

The question of truth remains, and those with left leanings will incline their ears towards leftist ideologies and the rightists towards the right.  Centrists are often criticized for their balanced views and considering both sides of the discussion.

We have witnessed and will continue to witness the great cost to our communities of the divisive nature of the legislation and changing coping strategies suggested by health officials.  Families, church congregations, company work forces, sports team fans and employees and many associations have been shattered by our varying reactions to the conflicting ‘facts.’    We can’t forget that we are now also encouraged to report our friends and neighbours who do not follow the ‘rules.’

The sheer financial cost to economies being locked down, global, regional and local is beyond calculation.  Couple that with the social cost of the monetary turmoil and the resulting mental illness, overdose deaths, divorce rates, suicide, ‘natural’ deaths due to delayed medical treatment and future potential respiratory conditions triggered by improper and un-necessary mask usage and we have financial numbers that are nearly beyond belief.

This brings us back to the original premise.

We, as human beings who live in our communities, political leaders who lead our cities, states, provinces, and countries want one thing.  Mankind, throughout history, all over the world, has searched for ONE thing.

Truth.

Truth about our faith issues.  Truth about our politicians and their place in our world.  Truth about our future-will our children be able to survive?  Truth about our economies and the political policies that affect them.  Truth about everything.

The funny thing is that Truth cannot be relative because while times have changed, Truth would have changed and if that is true than we are probably all wrong and if I am right, you may be wrong and one of us is going to face eternity paying for poor decisions.  Not much hope there.  Therefore, Truth cannot change and moreover, it is not relative, it is absolute. It just IS.  No options.  And for Truth to be consistent for millennia, it cannot be based on circumstances, but rather something or someone who IS eternal and DOES NOT CHANGE.

Those who live their lives based on relative truths waiver like a ship on the ocean.

It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes. Throughout the world, light is dispelling the darkness.

What is Truth

Just as Pontius Pilate asked Jesus when he stood before him prior to crucifixion, the question is the same and always will be be…

What is Truth?

Answer the question carefully.  Your life depends on it.

Tim Lasiuta is a Red Deer writer, entrepreneur and communicator. He has interests in history and the future for our country.

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Crime

The Left Thinks Drug Criminalization Is Racist. Minorities Disagree

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[This article was originally published in City Journal, a public policy magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research]

By Adam Zivo

A Canadian poll finds that racial minorities don’t believe drug enforcement is bigoted.

Is drug prohibition racist? Many left-wing institutions seem to think so. But their argument is historically illiterate—and it contradicts recent polling data, too, which show that minorities overwhelmingly reject that view.

Policies and laws are tools to establish order. Like any tool, they can be abused. The first drug laws in North America, dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguably fixated on opium as a legal pretext to harass Asian immigrants, for example. But no reasonable person would argue that laws against home invasion, murder, or theft are “racist” because they have been misapplied in past cases. Absent supporting evidence, leaping from “this tool is sometimes used in racist ways” to “this tool is essentially racist” is kindergarten-level reasoning.

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Yet this is precisely what institutions and activist groups throughout the Western world have done. The Drug Policy Alliance, a U.S.-based organization, suggests that drug prohibition is rooted in “racism and fear.” Harm Reduction International, a British NGO, argues for legalization on the grounds that drug prohibition entrenches “racialized hierarchies, which were established under colonial control and continue to dominate today.” In Canada, where I live, the top public health official in British Columbia, our most drug-permissive province, released a pro-legalization report last summer claiming that prohibition is “based on a history of racism, white supremacy, paternalism, colonialism, classism and human rights violations.”

These claims ignore how drug prohibition has been and remains popular in many non-European societies. Sharia law has banned the use of mind-altering substances since the seventh century. When Indigenous leaders negotiated treaties with Canadian colonists in the late 1800s, they asked for  “the exclusion of fire water (whiskey)” from their communities. That same century, China’s Qing Empire banned opium amid a national addiction crisis. “Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality,” the Daoguang emperor wrote in an 1810 edict.

Today, Asian and Muslim jurisdictions impose much stiffer penalties on drug offenders than do Western nations. In countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Singapore, and Thailand, addicts and traffickers are given lengthy prison sentences or executed. Meantime, in Canada and the United States, de facto decriminalization has left urban cores littered with syringes and shrouded in clouds of meth.

The anti-drug backlash building in North America appears to be spearheaded by racial minorities. When Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s former district attorney, was recalled in 2022, support for his ouster was highest among Asian voters. Last fall, 73 percent of Latinos backed California’s Proposition 36, which heightened penalties for drug crimes, while only 58 percent of white respondents did.

In Canada, the first signs of a parallel trend emerged during Vancouver’s 2022 municipal election, where an apparent surge in Chinese Canadian support helped install a slate of pro-police candidates. Then, in British Columbia’s provincial election last autumn, nonwhite voters strongly preferred the BC Conservatives, who campaigned on stricter drug laws. And in last month’s federal election, within both Vancouver and Toronto’s metropolitan areas, tough-on-crime conservatives received considerable support from South Asian communities.

These are all strong indicators that racial minorities do not, in fact, universally favor drug legalization. But their small population share means there is relatively little polling data to measure their preferences. Since only 7.6 percent of Americans are Asian, for example, a poll of 1,000 randomly selected people will yield an average of only 76 Asian respondents—too small a sample from which to draw meaningful conclusions. You can overcome this barrier by commissioning very large polls, but that’s expensive.

Nonetheless, last autumn, the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy (a nonprofit I founded and operate) did just that. In partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we contracted Mainstreet Research to ask over 12,000 British Columbians: “Do you agree or disagree that criminalizing drugs is racist?”

The results undermine progressives’ assumptions. Only 26 percent of nonwhite respondents agreed (either strongly or weakly) that drug criminalization is racist, while over twice as many (56 percent) disagreed. The share of nonwhite respondents who strongly disagreed was three times larger than the share that strongly agreed (43.2 percent versus 14.3 percent). These results are fairly conclusive for this jurisdiction, given the poll’s sample size of 2,233 nonwhite respondents and a margin of error of 2 percent.

Notably, Indigenous respondents seemed to be the most anti-drug ethnic group: only 20 percent agreed (weakly or strongly) with the “criminalization is racist” narrative, while 61 percent disagreed. Once again, those who disagreed were much more vehement than those who agreed. With a sample size of 399 respondents, the margin of error here (5 percent) is too small to confound these dramatic results.

We saw similar outcomes for other minority groups, such as South Asians, Southeast Asians, Latinos, and blacks. While Middle Eastern respondents also seemed to follow this trend, the poll included too few of them to draw definitive conclusions. Only East Asians were divided on the issue, though a clear majority still disagreed that criminalization is racist.

As this poll was limited to British Columbian respondents, our findings cannot necessarily be assumed to hold throughout Canada and the United States. But since the province is arguably the most drug-permissive jurisdiction within the two countries, these results could represent the ceiling of pro-drug, anti-criminalization attitudes among minority communities.

Legalization proponents and their progressive allies take pride in being “anti-racist.” Our polling, however, suggests that they are not listening to the communities they profess to care about.

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Business

Dallas mayor invites NYers to first ‘sanctuary city from socialism’

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From The Center Square

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After the self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor in New York, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson invited New Yorkers and others to move to Dallas.

Mamdani has vowed to implement a wide range of tax increases on corporations and property and to “shift the tax burden” to “richer and whiter neighborhoods.”

New York businesses and individuals have already been relocating to states like Texas, which has no corporate or personal income taxes.

Johnson, a Black mayor and former Democrat, switched parties to become a Republican in 2023 after opposing a city council tax hike, The Center Square reported.

“Dear Concerned New York City Resident or Business Owner: Don’t panic,” Johnson said. “Just move to Dallas, where we strongly support our police, value our partners in the business community, embrace free markets, shun excessive regulation, and protect the American Dream!”

Fortune 500 companies and others in recent years continue to relocate their headquarters to Dallas; it’s also home to the new Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE). The TXSE will provide an alternative to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq and there are already more finance professionals in Texas than in New York, TXSE Group Inc. founder and CEO James Lee argues.

From 2020-2023, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA reported the greatest percentage of growth in the country of 34%, The Center Square reported.

Johnson on Thursday continued his invitation to New Yorkers and others living in “socialist” sanctuary cities, saying on social media, “If your city is (or is about to be) a sanctuary for criminals, mayhem, job-killing regulations, and failed socialist experiments, I have a modest invitation for you: MOVE TO DALLAS. You can call us the nation’s first official ‘Sanctuary City from Socialism.’”

“We value free enterprise, law and order, and our first responders. Common sense and the American Dream still reside here. We have all your big-city comforts and conveniences without the suffocating vice grip of government bureaucrats.”

As many Democratic-led cities joined a movement to defund their police departments, Johnson prioritized police funding and supporting law and order.

“Back in the 1800s, people moving to Texas for greater opportunities would etch ‘GTT’ for ‘Gone to Texas’ on their doors moving to the Mexican colony of Tejas,” Johnson continued, referring to Americans who moved to the Mexican colony of Tejas to acquire land grants from the Mexican government.

“If you’re a New Yorker heading to Dallas, maybe try ‘GTD’ to let fellow lovers of law and order know where you’ve gone,” Johnson said.

Modern-day GTT movers, including a large number of New Yorkers, cite high personal income taxes, high property taxes, high costs of living, high crime, and other factors as their reasons for leaving their states and moving to Texas, according to multiple reports over the last few years.

In response to Johnson’s invitation, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Dallas is the first self-declared “Sanctuary City from Socialism. The State of Texas will provide whatever support is needed to fulfill that mission.”

The governor has already been doing this by signing pro-business bills into law and awarding Texas Enterprise Grants to businesses that relocate or expand operations in Texas, many of which are doing so in the Dallas area.

“Texas truly is the Best State for Business and stands as a model for the nation,” Abbott said. “Freedom is a magnet, and Texas offers entrepreneurs and hardworking Texans the freedom to succeed. When choosing where to relocate or expand their businesses, more innovative industry leaders recognize the competitive advantages found only in Texas. The nation’s leading CEOs continually cite our pro-growth economic policies – with no corporate income tax and no personal income tax – along with our young, skilled, diverse, and growing workforce, easy access to global markets, robust infrastructure, and predictable business-friendly regulations.”

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