There are days and weeks when I feel how lost our culture is. This past week has been one of those times.

First, I came across the news that racist trolls attempted to tank the box office for Black Panther by creating bogus tweets claiming black movie goers attacked white movie goers. These tweets were debunked with ease, but the utter lack of character behavior like this demonstrates is disheartening.

Second, I read an article highlighting some of the ways the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack are being attacked by right-leaning social commentators. These attacks have even sunk to the point of claiming the more vocal students are not students at all, but are actors who travel from crisis to crisis to promote a Democrat ideology. These are students who are grieving, but because they dare to call out the impotence of the politicians who profit from the status quo ¹ they are maligned by those who would oppose them. This disgusts me.

There is a reason why the prohibition against “false witness” is part of the Decalogue, when false witness is utilized to sway public opinion and manipulate a populace, it breaks the bonds of trust on which society depends. We have to do better, and sometimes the distance we still have to go causes me to groan with exasperation.