This is your daily reminder that the attack on America’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021 did, in fact, happen.

No, it was not perpetrated by FBI agents.

No, it was not perpetrated by Black Lives Matter.  There is an ocean of evidence contradicting those claims.

Yes, we understand that you “don’t watch the news.” No, we don’t agree that this is a shrewd and careful method of preventing yourself from being “brainwashed.”  It seems far more likely that you are protecting a cultivated worldview from information that might contradict it.  And some of us suspect that you might also be lazy.

No, we will not always personally relate to you “what happened” so that you are able to respond to our online comments.  Being your personal news provider isn’t our responsibility.  It’s weird that you think that.  If you cannot provide information to support your own position, that’s your problem.

Yes, we understand that “the media” is biased.  Virtually all news sources are biased, because they are all staffed by human beings.  Some news sources are biased toward the Left.  Some are biased toward the Right.  The challenge for us as adults is to recognize and account for that bias — and then weigh the relative merits of any individual news report accordingly.

Willfully constructing a worldview in an information vacuum is not a viable answer.  It isn’t wise or shrewd.  It’s actually a childlike way to think, because we too easily fall into the trap of telling ourselves what we want to hear.

Some of us have noticed that you indeed DO trust “the media” when a story appears that corroborates your position.  If you so wisely avoid reading information that you deem “fake,” how are you even aware of news reports that you deem “real?”  No … we do not always believe you when you say you “just found it at random.”

When you describe “the media” as being “an enemy of the American people,” there is an outside chance that you are actually talking to a member of “the media” (or maybe their friends or family).  I was a news reporter for a couple of years.  I was young.  I was too dumb, too poor, too idealistic and too disorganized to be part of a conspiracy against the American people.  You think news reporters are organizing a plot against America?  There are news reporters who are incapable of organizing a sock drawer.  I was one of them.

No, we will not always “Google it!!” to seek information supporting your position.  It is your position — you are responsible for supporting it with facts.  If you choose not to do so, some of us might reasonably point that out.

If you present an opinion without evidence, that’s … actually okay, if you simply acknowledge it when asked.  Saying, “I don’t have evidence to back this up, but this is what I think” is perfectly alright.  It is a normal part of adult discourse.

If we do “Google it!!!” and the search results only appear to debunk your claim, some of us are quite skeptical about your claim that “Google removed it” or “Google took the information down.”  We do suspect that the evidence was never there at all.

Conspiracy arguments can be a two-way street.  If you claim that my information is fabricated by a conspiracy, can I make similar assertions about your information with equal credibility?

Here’s what I mean.  If you claim that CNN is controlled by the New World Order, can I reasonably claim that your YouTube videos are fabricated by The Freemasons?  If you claim that CDC data was planted online by the Illuminati, can I claim that the website you shared was constructed by S.P.E.C.T.R.E.?  If not, why not?  Why should your conspiracy theory be deemed credible, while mine is not?

Finally, not all of us believe that avoiding information is somehow edgy or subversive, or a heroic defiance of nefarious, unseen, powerful influencers.  There is a chance that you are simply propping up and protecting a system of false beliefs — in a way that is transparent to the rest of us.