Critical thinking can be readily displaced by factors such as crises (real and generated), fear, massive propaganda, susceptibility to indoctrination, cognitive dissonance, cults, and a host of other psychological and perceptual problems. To think that what happened in Nazi Germany wouldn't happen here is. for example, a failure to understand how easily people can be manipulated.
In today’s United States, when things of the heart (emotions) get in the way, logic and reasoning take a second seat. In Jeremiah 17:9 we have: The heart is deceitful above all things and terribly wicked. Who can know it? In the case of Smollet, he was riding the waves of emotions that permeated the entire population of the U,.S. but thankfully, most people quickly understood that Smolett is an idiot.
Yes, he certainly intended to do harm, and if they could have found a couple of white people in Chicago to hang it on, he would have ruined their lives, knowing it was a sham.
Heck, there was a False Flag incident at a mid-western university a year or so ago (either a noose or racist graffiti), and even though it was readily discovered to be a lie, the entire student body was still required to attend a diversity class because it "could have" really happened. This was done on the part of the "adult" university administrators.
And I think everyone remembers Bubba. Ya know, the black NASCAR driver who claimed that the garage door pull-down rope was staged as a noose by a racist. Like he hasn’t pulled on that rope a hundred times and one day, poof, why, THAT looks like a noose!
I think he should teach martial arts, fighting with two bodybuilders and walking away without dropping his sandwich.
Smollett sentenced. From Yahoo... "Smollett will serve a total of five months in the Cook County Jail, not prison, which is typical for shorter sentences. He was also sentenced to 30 months' felony probation, ordered to pay $120,106 of restitution to the city of Chicago and pay $25,000 fine. "I know that there his nothing that I will do here today that will come close to the damage you have done to your own life," the judge told Smollett. "You destroyed your life as you knew it." Hmmmmm... When he received the sentence he shouted "I am not suicidal. I am innocent and I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself and you must all know that."
Some of the media is indeed saying Smollet got 5 months but the judge gave him 150 days. Whilst there are those who might believe that the two are the same, in many states it’s not. A county sentence of months allows the inmate to serve good time which is half of the sentence if the prisoner is playing nice. The sentence of “days” normally indicates that every day has to be served without any good time and should said inmate break the rules, it is easier to add more days to the sentence. Without doing the necessary research, I’d venture to opine that he will not serve any time with hard line prisoners but rather serve city or county time with the wino’s, druggies, drunks and other light weight offenders. Might even see him along the road picking up trash.
He'll probably find a length of rope along the road and be triggered all over again, after draping it around his neck.