President's Point

The death of Senator John McCain has me thinking about the word, perspective. I was once asked, how many sides to a coin? The answer is three: the head, the tail and the rough edges. The point is this- there is your perspective, the other person's perspective and the truth. Perspective is the reality of the holder, and may not be 100 percent all factual, because there are these things called feelings that get involved in perception.

To most, Senator McCain was an honorable man and military hero. On the other side of that coin, if you read military history, there was an awful mishap on board the Aircraft Carrier, USS Forrestal during the Vietnam conflict. A few of this incidents' survivors blamed McCain. The truth is somewhere in between. But to the survivors of this incident, several place the fact that McCain suffered no public repercussions on the correlation his father was an active duty Admiral at the time. The old perception that it is not what you know, but who you know, that helps you out of a jam from time to time.

McCain was a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam conflict. Most credit his behavior as exemplary, there is however a few fellow American Vietnam POWs that have a different perspective. The truth is only known to God and McCain.

Now here is the current rub, many in the public are using the fact that McCain publicly stated President Trump was not welcome at his funeral as the sole reason for President Trump to have the U.S. flag over the White House raised to full staff on Monday.

There are three points here. One, we do not know the whole truth, did President Trump indeed order the U.S. flag to full staff or did some custodian not having all the details just make a decision based on the current U.S. Flag Code and being the flag was at half-staff for one day which is customary for elected officials, raise the flag on Monday to full staff? Two, did President Trump not just speak up about the details? There are several political and public relations and press reasons why or why not. The truth is only known by God and President Trump. The public can make its own conclusions, based on perception. Third, the U.S. Flag Code says the President can order the U.S. flag flown over federal property to half-staff for several reasons. This order is then made into a request to the Governors of the 50 states and the local authorities of all territories. These leaders than publish an order saying all state-owned property that has an U.S. flag flying shall display said flag at half-staff. Upon such order, all municipality authorities take appropriate action.

Here is the point, most citizens will base their opinion of the correctness of this Flag Gate issue on their own perception of President Trump. Those who despise him and those who favor him will have two differing opinions. Myself, I try to hold an impartial opinion mainly based on facts, which are hard to obtain in a world where many of the media outlets are so opposed to President Trump. So where does one go to get the facts? The source. Now in the case of this Flag Gate thing, I was never much of a fan of Senator McCain, I voted for him as President based on the fact he was not the other guy and he had the first Republican female Vice President candidate on his ticket. So I don't really want to use my one 'talk to the President directly card' on this small issue, so I prefer to state this- I do not know the facts and will not draw a conclusion if President Trump was correct or not correct. To many, they will also not bother to find out all the facts but will never the less make a judgement of President Trump's action.

What I am really asking by writing this piece is this: please attempt to withhold negative conclusions about anyone until you have the facts. And if those facts can only be obtained by talking directly to the source, and you are reluctant to do so, then please be reluctant to make a perceptive conclusion solely based on your feeling for that individual.

Please have a safe fall and keep an eye out for the children of our community.