THE FLAG FOOTBALL SCHISM

Deception – Division – Disaster

The great counterfeiter adapts deception to every time and culture – Billy Graham

The great counterfeiter’s kryptonite is division through slander – James MacDonald

There’s no disaster that can’t become a blessing or blessing a disaster – J. L. Seagull

Deception has both Origin and Offspring

There exists within the Homo sapiens₁ core a prescient connection to purpose – eternally unbounded by time, space, or matter (spirit), and animated interests – that eternally liberates creativity from the internment of reason (soul). The entanglement of spirit and soul inspires engagement by temporal corporeal-synaptic agency (body). Many sense this multidimensional agency; few realize its genesis (origin) resides in the human spirit.

Note₁: Sapiens is technically an adjective, but herein denotes both singular and plural forms.

While engagement is the progeny (offspring) of Sapiens intent, the confluence of spirit (morality) and soul (aspiration) is where intent gestates. Intent can be actualized in kinetic (active) states, e.g. standing and singing, and static (passive) states, e.g. kneeling in silence. Regardless of state, engagement reveals the nature of the spirit – truth or deception – that the soul sanctions, and it alone rewards with corporeal-synaptic agency.

Deception inspired spiritual agency (strategic deceit) has powerful capacity to influence the human soul. However, truth-inspired spiritual agency (divine purpose) also abides; it grants both the power to discern deception and to obtain revelation to the human soul. Yet, a soul that affirms deceit opens a portal by which deception begets fraudulent engagement, which engagement begets division, where after division begets disaster.

Deception purports a unifying Genesis but claims plausible denial of its divisive Progeny

Deception disavows Details and Facts – by any Words Necessary

A broadly disseminated narrative contends that police have disproportionate violent encounters with young African American men. This point was defended on a recent National Broadcast News Program by an African America trial lawyer who: used word symbols and slogans, but just one fact and no details to provide context to the narrative.

The following evening, the same News Program afforded an African American lawyer from the US Commission on Civil Rights the opportunity to respond to the trial lawyers assertions. The Commissioner used Department of Justice data and copious Commission studies to prove that the assertions pivoted on a word – disproportionate – not facts.

Deception religiously defuses Details and Facts with Symbols and Slogans

Deception seeks to sire Division – by any Means Necessary

The Commissioner also reported that the data confirms police kill black men (6 percent of the population) 2.5 times more frequently than whites (31 percent of the population), or disproportionately. However, computing the ratio of police killings by dividing group killings by the total male populations of that group is intellectually dishonest and yields a patiently deceptive outcome. A cogent examination of the data by universally vetted mathematical processes is revealing, compelling, and alarming:

In New York, young black men commit 35 times more robberies, 38 times more murders, and 51 times more firearm-related crimes – than do whites.

In 2015 police killed 36 unarmed black men, while other black men (mostly young) murdered nearly 6,000 other black Americans.

Young black males make up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade.

Perhaps the most sobering revelation is that of the 7,881 African Americans murdered in 2016 – the overwhelming majority were murdered by young African American males between the ages of 17 and 34, less than 1.5 percent of the total population.

Deception highjacks the power of language to deprive many of “an ear to see”

Division masterfully disorients Good Intentions

Many African American professional athletes – and others – are exercising their First Amendment right to protest what they see as disproportionate treatment of young black men by police. Not surprisingly, the young men on whom the protests focus fall within the same age range (25.5) as the protesters (NBA: 26.5 and NFL: 25.6); many hail from the same archetype communities. Undoubtedly many of these athletes, no matter their salaries, have unique insights regarding the plight and experiences of this group – and processes by which they can overcome their difficult and self-destructive challenges.

Who is better positioned and accomplished – to mentor this group – than these athletes?

Division is Organic and Infectious

The protesters infrequent articulation of details and facts that reveal the marrow of their cause – beyond talking points and slogans – organically accelerates division. It has led many to conclude that these athletes are unaware of the well-established data and facts that impair the potency and piety of their protests. The infectious kumbaya (feelings) between players and owners does not reflect a perfect union, given fierce fan base opposition (reality). Division always seeks to substitute feelings in place of reality.

Discounting POTUS Flag bluster is one thing – but Flags thrown by fans quite another

Division inspires Schism as a prelude to Disaster

First and foremost the Flag is not a symbol of a perfect union but of the sacrifice of life and limb by all members of the National Community to include African Americans (54^th Mass. Infantry, Abolitionist, Tuskegee Airmen, and many Medal of Honor recipients). Various protesters seem unaware or unconcerned that casting the Flag in the shadow of wanton murder of private citizens by private citizens (a symbol pivot) is hugely divisive.

Division is an Accelerant – that unfurls Disastrous uncontainable Social Infernos

Disaster is the Love Child of Division

Contrary to popular convention, division is counter-intuitive to both those harboring noble and nefarious intent. Some choose: to destroy and disparage, oppose and oppress, disrupt and dispose, challenge and co-opt – yet others choose to collaborate and coordinate, plan and produce, share and sacrifice, encourage and enable. No analytics provide plausible incentive to embrace division over allied engagement. Both divisive and allied engagements are the progeny (offspring) of radically different geneses, which reveal which spirit – truth or deception – the soul has elected to sanction.

It’s no coincidence that the terms used to describe divisive engagement are the same as those impartial scribes use to critique military conquest, political retribution, economic calamity, and acts of terrorism; division – the progeny of deception – foments disaster. The terms used to describe allied engagement are often the same as those impartial scribes use to critique military forbearance, political discourse, economic propriety, and acts of selfless generosity; allegiance – the progeny of truth – empowers relationship.

Infused by Deception infected Division – the Internet supercharges virtual Disaster

Truth has its own Power and Authority

Once the human soul has elected to collaborate with the spirit of deception, the corporeal-synaptic-self engages as an enraged opponent of truth. An effective strategy for controverting truth is to supplant free speech and access (First Amendment Rights) by force and disparagement. Sources that expose deception are often attacked, and credible facts are bleached to oblivion by fake news and rebukes from celebrity scions.

Truth is eternal: it does not originate in the temporal corporeal-synaptic realm. Eternal truth is not reasoned conclusions fashioned from data, facts, circumstances, or season. Eternal truth cannot arise from nor survive on the basis of religious, cultural, or political ideologies. Ideologies are nevertheless the perfect companions to deception, cloaking deception in an opaque sea of familiarity. No matter the vigorous applause of agreeable constituencies, deception cannot survive the discerning and revelatory power of truth.

Truth is both an Eternal Quality and a Source of Eternal Power – only when it is shared!