Riley Syndrome Pandemic

"My head's made up. You can't confuse me with the facts." -- Chester A. Riley

Stability at the cost of freedom is too high a price to pay. -- Pug Mahoney

"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither." -- Benjamin Franklin

   Reality denial and the embrace of "alternative facts" have spread so widely in America today as to reach pandemic status.
   It's most evident at political campaign rallies where supporters threaten journalists, following the Beloved Leader's rant of "fake news" spread by "disgusting, horrible" journalists who are "the enemy of the people."
   No wonder, then, that some True Believers extend that incitement to violence to include threats and obscenities through anonymous phone calls and social media diatribes against individual reporters.
   So is the political leader deliberately inciting violence against what he calls the "enemy of the people," the "fake news media"?
   That's a harsh accusation, but the reality is that the constant ranting and virulent criticism of any who disagree with him, or who report accurately what he says and does in ways that warn of the danger to the American tradition, may well lead to a dictatorship.

   "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it," is a phrase attributed in various forms to numerous philosophers and political leaders, including Edmund Burke, George Santayana and Winston Churchill.
   Blind and unquestioning loyalty to a single political leader is the first step toward being led down a  path to violence against all who disagree, often based on racism and bigotry.
   It has happened in other parts of the world in the past, and is happening in some parts of the world today.
   Moreover, there are signs and symptoms that America today is falling victim to the same disease, as they forget the words of welcome written by the poet Emma Lazarus and inscribed on the Golden Door in New York Harbor.