The Patriot Post® · Friday Short Cuts

Insight: “Governments have ever been known to hold a high hand over the education of the people. They know, better than anyone else, that their power is based almost entirely on the school. Hence, they monopolize it more and more.” —Francisco Ferrer (1857-1909)

Re: Dezinformatsiya: “The notoriety QAnon now enjoys has more to do with the media building it up than Republicans flocking to its banner. According to Pew Research, last spring during the Democratic primaries, more Democrats had heard about QAnon conspiracy theories than Republicans had (28 to 18 percent, respectively) and by the fall, that disparity had grown, with 55 percent of Democrats saying they’d heard of QAnon compared to less than 40 percent of Republicans. Notably, those most likely to say they had heard about it also reported that they got their news mainly from The New York Times, MSNBC, and NPR.” —John Daniel Davidson

For the record: “From the moment Trump was sworn in, Democrats and the media talked about how divisive Trump would be for America, and this was repeated throughout his term. Despite no longer being president, that message continues. A recent CNN piece stated that Trump left the nation at its most divided since the Civil War. The Civil War — the one that nearly destroyed our young nation and left 620,000 dead — that divided? We’re nowhere near as divided as that moment, and to make such a comparison is precisely why so many Americans have, frankly, lost faith in our media and political system as a whole. It is for this reason that Trump was ever elected, and if the Democrats want to continue their success in elections, they must course-correct!” —Armstrong Williams

Political futures: “The reason the Republicans fell short, according to [James] Pinkerton, is that ‘too much of the Republican Party has replaced voting with venting. Anger can be a motivator, but such motivation is useful only if it is harnessed to an effective mechanism, such as an election. Otherwise, such passion is just wasted energy — and often, in fact, it’s counterproductive.’ So counterproductive that not all of the people who stormed the Capitol in protest on Jan. 6 had voted in the presidential election. It would make sense that voting should be done before protesting. Unfortunately, in a world driven by short news cycles, conflict-driven mainstream media and social media, we often protest too soon and too often rather than simply getting to work. We too often let anger control our actions. … Republicans have bought into the partisan politics, negative campaigning and fearmongering. Maybe my remembrance of Reagan is nostalgic, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a leader who seeks to unite Americans rather than denigrate the other side?” —Jackie Gingrich Cushman

A trip down memory lane: “Who Says It’s Not Safe to Travel to China?” —a New York Times op-ed by Rosie Spinks published on February 5, 2020 — exactly one year ago — subtitled, “The coronavirus travel ban is unjust and doesn’t work anyway.”

Double standards: “It’s the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.” —wealthy leftist elitist John Kerry on why he deserves to use private jets versus somebody like you

Non compos mentis: “If America were another country, we would be talking about how post-Civil War America is still in desperate need of a UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program for white supremacists and segregationists.” —Washington Post Global Opinions editor Karen Attiah (“We’ve gone from a country that papered over its past sins to one where newspaper editors fantasize about putting the United Nations, an organization teeming with tyrants, anti-Semites, racists, and terror states, in charge of weeding out wrongthink.” —David Harsanyi)

Grand delusions: “This deadly connection between white supremacy and guns runs throughout our history. … Simply put, if the Confederate flag is the primary symbol of white-supremacist hate, the gun is its deadliest weapon.” —Sharon Risher in The Washington Post

And last… “I have the utmost respect for what [police] do, for what our soldiers do, [people] that sacrifice their lives. I just don’t care for people who put those kind of people down. If it weren’t for them, we would not have the freedom to complain about what they do.” —Denzel Washington