There is no such thing as Facts

I read a conversation about the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri where some excellent advice was being passed along that dealt with waiting until the facts are in before arm chair or Monday morning quarterbacking the event.  It was something I had said myself so it sounded like really good advice, but the more I read the stronger this thought became.  Is there any such thing as fact?

I say that because no one can tell what is actually happening in the minds of those involved in any incident except those who are actually involved.  And many times, things happen so fast that even they have a hard time recanting what they were actually thinking at that particular time.  If Fox News report that something happened in a particular way, is that fact especially if MSNBC reports it happening a different way.  Whose fact are we going to go with?  Does it depends on which one you, as an individual, think is more fair and balanced than the other?  Do we have to wait until some expert stands at a podium, in front of TV cameras and tell us what the facts are?  But wouldn't that also be their interpretation of the evidence since they were nowhere near the event or was not trapped in the minds of those who were actually involved?

There may be some certainties in those events, items that reasonable people can agree that could have happened but even then, it leaves room to speculate that maybe it did not happen exactly that way.  Eyewitness statements say that there was a fight between Michael Brown and the officer but there were no mention of that from the preliminary autopsy unless they decided to omit that information.  So if we take this as fact then the argument and the witness that said there was a fight could be considered embellishing the truth so what part of that statement can we take as fact.  If there were a fight but the evidence of such was omitted by those giving the preliminary autopsy report then what part of their statements could we consider fact?

Is not fact then just strictly based on individual interpretation?  Is that why we can stretch a conversation about any subject till it becomes non-recognizable?  Isn't that where all of our controversies originate?   The widely accepted view of things are always thought of as fact until someone presents another side that no one has introduced before, then we begin to re-examine our previous stances to see if there is room to include this new information or fact.

The only real fact is a young man is dead and regardless of what color he is, who killed him or what color that person is.  A young man is dead and we need to analyze this event not because of color but because the loss of life, any life, demises us all.