Can we please focus on facts, instead of feelings?

Is President Joe Biden’s DOJ coming for angry parents?

So says KC Star columnist Michael Ryan. Following the United States DOJ’s announcement that it would act to protect local school boards from disruption and intimidation by protesters of “COVID-19 mask mandates and more,” Mr. Ryan wrote to describe the feelings of people on the right, and how it seems to them.

Condensed, making a few highlights for ease of later reference, and hopefully without doing violence to his message, here’s what Mr. Ryan wrote recently:

“But while the disruptions have sometimes been worse around the country, many conservatives feel the U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to intimidate them… That feeling is especially acute since the parents and patrons know that what they’re opposing – mask mandates and critical race theory – are part and parcel of Biden administration and big Tech orthodoxy. ...”

“...And the DOJ’s announcement seems more political than criminal in nature. ...”

“’...Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,’ Garland [United States Attorney General Merrick Garland] wrote in the announcement. Absolutely. But so is criminalizing dissent. And that’s what this feels like to many of us. ...”

“...’Local authorities are capable of handling local situations that cross the line from free speech to illegal conduct,’ tweets Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt. Yep. And I, for one, don’t trust the hyper-political federal government to decide where that line is. ...”

“...Forgive conservatives for once again feeling under siege for their political views. It seems as if anger and protest by the left are basically holy sacraments, while they’re crimes if done on the right. ...”

Are “seeming” and “feeling” good enough?

To begin, I don’t doubt that’s how they feel. Nor how it seems to them. But should either be a major concern to Mr. Garland’s enforcement of the law? That it seems unfair, or that they feel oppressed might be interesting, but aren’t feeling and seeming subjective? Are there better, objective, empiric measures to guide us?

For 11 months I’ve heard that many people feel that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden. I’ve heard more restrictive election laws justified as addressing how people feel. It seems to them that elections are not secure, that more restrictive laws will make elections feel more secure. But there is no empiric proof. No objective facts to consider and weigh.

Masks and vaccines are resisted or rejected again, because some people are not comfortable with the supporting science. The process seems to have been too quick, proponents seem insincere or worse, dishonest. Many feel uncomfortable. But again, the data says otherwise. The data supports taking a shot and wearing a mask. Can we afford to choose feeling or seeming over data?

“Critical race theory” frightens some people, it seems at odds with their own knowledge of themselves, or their experience. It angers them. It makes them feel threatened. But is it what it seems? Are their feelings supported by facts?

Whether people feel threatened, whether it seems unfair, is a starting point. It affords the opportunity to investigate the appearance or the feeling. But what’s true? Mr. Ryan needs to tell us how the seeming and the feeling are supported by reality. He never makes the attempt.

But there’s also another important point.

Neither Mr. Ryan nor Mr. Schmidt seem to know or remember American history. The point is that our Constitution does not trust the guarantee of basic rights to law enforcement officers who are controlled by or subservient to the passions of local majorities.

Following the Civil War unreconstructed Southerners (Do you now understand the source of the word “unreconstructed”?) refused to protect the rights of Blacks. The genesis of the Department of Justice was the blatant refusal across the South to enforce civil rights. The DOJ was created for the primary purpose of enforcing of civil rights during Reconstruction following the Civil War. If you don’t know why the creation of a national force was necessary, just Google Blyew v. U.S., 80 U.S. 581 (1871).

.If you want more recent events that demonstrate reason to doubt the ability of Attorneys General for States like Kansas or Missouri to ignore the passions and pressure of local politics and “handle local situations,” look no further than the Kansas/Missouri pair of Schmidt and [Eric] Schmitt. Both signed onto the laughable lawsuit filed by Texas to prevent the votes of 13,000,000 Pennsylvanians from being counted in the 2020 election.

What seems and what feels simply isn’t good when making important decisions. It seemed to me the Chiefs were being torpedoed by bad calls, and I felt they were the better team. But at the end of the day the Bills scored more points.

How does seeming or feeling matter? Do we even want to explore what seems true to a lynch mob, or how its members feel? I don’t.

William Skepnek is a defense attorney in Lawrence, Kansas. For 20 years, he was also an adjunct professor in Honors Western Civ at the University of Kansas.