By Steve Brawner, Copyright 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There’s what we know to be true, suspect to be true, want to be true, and don’t care if it’s true. As much as possible, we should strive to make the first three the same, and stay away from the last one. Unfortunately, too often it’s the last three where we make our home. That brings us to two separate news items this week: the caravan and the pipe bomber.

Here’s what we know to be true about that caravan: Thousands of Central Americans are so desperate to flee gang violence and poverty that they’re trying to march all the way up Mexico to get to the United States. Look at a map or a globe, and try to imagine the enormity of that task. As of Thursday, they’d traveled 95 miles in six days with more than 1,000 miles to go in the Mexican heat. No wonder many have already dropped out.

A society that most values what it knows to be true would respond by asking itself difficult questions about its responsibility. If they make it, do we help them, or do we turn them away? There are reasonable arguments for both.

Unfortunately, truth is not always our highest aim. The president of the United States charged one day that the caravan included “Middle Easterners,” and then later said he had no proof of that. When he originally made the charge, did he suspect it was true, want it to be true, or not care if it was true? Meanwhile, some Americans are openly questioning, again without proof, if the caravan is being funded by liberal political forces like billionaire George Soros who somehow want to influence the upcoming and future elections.

Let’s logically consider both accusations. There are far easier ways for Middle Easterners (or just about anyone else) to get here, legally or illegally, than walking the length of Mexico. Moreover, the caravan is the subject of extensive attention from Mexican law enforcement and the American media, including conservative media sources. Those in the caravan aren’t trying to sneak anywhere. And if this is a liberal political stunt, it’s surely a dumb one. It’s doing more to fire up the Republican base than it’s doing to help Democrats. If these haggard refugees are being handed a few pesos to walk this great distance, it could just as easily be coming from some rich donor who’s supporting President Trump.

None of that matters if truth isn’t our highest goal – not if we suspect the caravan is full of bad actors or funded by a political enemy, or if we want it to be for political reasons, or if we don’t care at all.

Then this past week, numerous Democratic political figures along with CNN were targeted with pipe bombs. The suspect was apprehended by Friday, but even in that amount of time there was plenty of speculation, some of it unfounded. Some conservative pundits theorized that the bomber must be a  Democratic hoaxer ginning up sympathy for his side, and they did not back down even after the bomber was arrested and found to be living in a van covered with pro-Trump paraphernalia.

Trump says he is not to blame for the pipe bomber, and certainly the bulk of the responsibility rests on that lunatic.

But clearly today’s rhetorical climate, inflamed by the president and his opponents and the entertainment and news media, is having an effect. Remember the guy who opened fire on the Republican congressional baseball team? He … didn’t seem that crazy. The nutjobs we will always have with us, but how many of us are being pushed toward the edge but not all the way, and what happens when we’re there?

The antidote to all this is the truth. It exists, but you and I have a limited capacity as humans to determine it. What enables a free society to thrive is if we pursue it knowing we’ll come up short, and if we have the same mercy on others that we expect them to offer us.

The alternative is a far greater threat than a caravan of Mexican refugees or even a pipe bomber living in a van.