The news started being filled with success stories of entrepreneurs, while we also quit seeing racist and intolerant minorities showing up with sob stories.
Factually, most of this was the Mainstream Media trying to get ratings out of controversy - the more they stirred it up, the longer it lasted. They had some funny idea that they could "control the narrative." Far from the truth.
"Can't we all just get along?" was the phrase we started using - and the history of that statement speaks volumes about how minority "oppression" is exploited by various sources for their own good.
The LGBT community had to swallow a bitter pill - that they had to tolerate other's beliefs just as they sought (and marched and boycotted) to get theirs.
Because you win in the courts doesn't mean you ever won over the majority which put that law into action originally. Hearts and minds are different things. Such take time to change and to heal.
The Mainstream Media was always pitting the overpopulated coasts against the more traditional middle (Flyover Country.) And they held to this odd-ball concept that controversy kept their advertisers (mostly drug companies) happy. Makes sense, in a perverse fashion.
The more interesting point was how people were watching less and less news in favor of stories which they could get online that weren't so disaster-driven.
Mostly, our work in Washington was to get the government out of the meddling business. Since that "community-organizer-in-chief" (aka "reverse-discriminator-in-chief") left, things calmed down rapidly. When the White House was asked for a comment, the standard line was to ask a question back - such as, "What would you have us say?" Then a conversation would ensue - the PR person was coached to encourage discussion amongst the reporters - and the whole thing was covered on CSPAN so people could make up their own mind.
(Our own website would often excerpt these, posting to YouTube and then embedding it for all to see. Very calming when your favorite reporter has a personal paradigm-shift on national television.)
Press Conferences Gave Back
In fact, my press conferences (held each Ides of the month, poetically) got quite interesting. The ground rule was set: For every question, the person on the podium was then able to ask that person a question.
Long "exclusive" interviews were filmed by CSPAN as well as that station, so that the entire give-and-take was recorded, unedited. Generally, the interviewer got 25 questions and I got 25 questions.
This got real interesting after awhile, where reporters were asked personal questions about how they personally felt about things, and their own employer's policies. This kept my staff busy researching reporters and the media - and those reporters soon learned about living in glass houses.
Soon, some reporters quit asking for interviews. And the ones that did (and could thrive in that give-and-take) usually got a bigger following on the social media.
Minority Intolerance
Because a person was "gay" or "islamist" meant no difference to me or to the government. The laws of the land were as they were. When a person was discriminated against, then they could seek relief from the courts. But where a person discriminated against others in order to push forward some extremist-minority view which attempted to force others to change their own beliefs, then the shoe was on the other foot.Gays had no right to force a person to sell stuff to them. Like the old ploy of the government forcing contraception coverage on religious groups. Commerce is not a natural right or law. It's governed by man-made laws.
Chiefly, we stayed out of things and referred them to state and local areas for resolution. And we encouraged outside groups trying to take advantage of a scene in a local area to "butt out." That community needed to resolve it's problems on it's own. It's been the natural order of things since history started being written.
Governments only exist through vast majority opinion. Minorities should be heard, and also have their rights to exist and to believe as they want. But you can't use any government to force someone else to change their beliefs just for your own personal benefit.
Those who were shouting loudest for tolerance usually ended up exposed as hypocritically intolerant of those who didn't believe as they did.
Weird, huh?
It just goes back to what a person says. You get back what you give out. Be supportive and understanding, and you'll get more of this back in your life. Let people choose their own beliefs - and as long as this doesn't deny natural rights and laws to others, then you can pretty much do what you want.
It was our job to move the government back to honoring natural rights and laws as much as possible, just like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence states. A right to the pursuit of happiness.
Not so remarkably, revenue jumped up without an increase in taxes. More jobs opened up, less crime happened.
And yes, we pretty much ignored the U.N. - other than holding ambassadors responsible for their staff's parking tickets (those that could come to the U.S. because they weren't terrorism sponsors.)
Lots of commerce for everyone. American dream and all that.
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