Posted on 04/04/2006 2:31:22 AM PDT by RWR8189
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it this way: "Demagoguery beats data."
People who urge us to rely on the United Nations, instead of acting "unilaterally," or who urge us to follow other countries in creating a government-run medical care system, often show not the slightest interest in getting facts about the actual track record of either the UN or government-run medical systems.
Those who believe in affirmative action likewise usually see no reason to find out what actually happens under such policies, as distinguished from what they wish, hope, or imagine happens.
The crusade for "a living wage" that will enable a worker to support a family proceeds without the slightest interest in finding out whether most people who are making low wages actually have any family to support -- much less seeking out the facts about what actually happens after the government sets wages.
People who have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts are a danger to the whole society. Since the votes of such people count just as much as the votes of people who know what they are talking about, politicians have every incentive to pass laws and create policies that pander to ignorant notions, if those notions are widespread.
Even institutions that are set up to pass on facts -- the media, schools, academia -- too often treat facts as expendable and use their strategic positions to filter out facts which go against their own preconceptions.
Crimes against homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are big news to be dramatized, repeated, and denounced. Crimes committed by homosexuals, blacks, or the homeless are not -- and are often passed over in silence by much of the media. The net result is that the public gets filtered facts, which can create an impression the direct opposite of the truth.
We learn from the media's filtered facts that there are countries with stronger gun-control laws than ours which have lower murder rates. We seldom, if ever, learn from the media about countries which have stronger gun-control laws than ours and whose murder rates are two or three times higher than ours.
The media also filter out facts about countries where gun ownership is far more widespread than in the United States -- and who nevertheless have lower murder rates.
Those who are in the business of teaching the young, whether in the public schools or on college campuses, too often see this not as a responsibility to pass on what is known but as an opportunity to indoctrinate students with their own beliefs. Many "educators" and the gurus who indoctrinated them actively disparage "mere facts," which they say you can get from an almanac or encyclopedia.
The net result is a student population that does not even know enough to know what needs to be looked up, much less how to analyze facts, so as to test opposing beliefs -- as distinguished from how to gather information to support a preconceived notion that happens to be fashionable in the schools and colleges.
Yet people are considered to be "educated" after they have spent so many years in ivy-covered buildings, absorbing the preconceptions that prevail there.
Facts that go against preconceived notions are likely to be ignored, even by many scholars. For example, slavery is an issue that is widely discussed as if it were something peculiar to Africans enslaved by Europeans, instead of something suffered and inflicted around the world by people of every race, color, and religion.
Two books about more European slaves brought to North Africa than there were African slaves brought to America have been published in recent years. They are "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters" by Robert Davis and "White Gold" by Giles Milton. Both books have been largely ignored by the media and academia alike -- and the first went out of print, less than 6 months after being published.
Apparently scholars, as well as journalists, have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by the facts.
Great column. Sowell is totally correct about the media filtering everything. If you only received your information from the TV news channels, you would think that:
1. The majority of racial crimes are white on black
2. Pretty women are being kidnapped at alarming rates
3. White supremacy is a national problem
4. The polar ice caps are melting and flooding everything, blah, blah, blah.
5. The news media deserves respect and the government officials must answer to them
6. Bill Clinton never used force in international relations
7. Bin Laden only became a problem after Bush took office
8. Repeat ad nauseum.
Facts only matter if I believe them.
I BEEEELLLLLIIIIEEEEEEVVVEEEE John Kerry will be sworn in Jauary 2005, therefore, it's a fact.
</sarcasm>
Truly the liberal's code.
Sowell bump
bump for after the coffee kicks in
I just finished reading Sowell's book "Basic Economics". It is a worthwhile book even for someone who has studied economics.
Dr. Sowell had an earlier article called "Us and Them" (I think) which ties in very well with this article.
Thanks for the post!
The MSM's first rule of business:
"Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story".
Wow!
Great line, applicable to many, many situations and explains a whole lot of what is going on today in 'Rat politics.
The title of this article, "Are Facts Obsolete?" rips into the Clintonian relativism. Clinton introduced us to a funky kind of truth which large numbers of our citizens are unable and unwilling to shake.
Clinton has introduced temporary truth. Clintonian truth serves its purpose for the day but it doesn't stand the test of time. But that's OK. It doesn't need to.
The fact that Clintonian truth has an expiration date means that they know their facts will likely be obsolete tomorrow but they really don't care, as long as they serves their purposes today.
So yes Thomas, sadly, the Facts Are Obsolete!
Thanks for the tip. I may just have to read that. I have one with a similar title that was written I believe by Paul Samuelson and some other moron. I got about 50 pages into the book, and had to stop. They were talking about the three greatest economists ever as Adam Smith (true), John Maynard Keynes, and Karl Marx, with special praise for Marx as having a deeper and broader knowledge of economics than anyone ever has because he spent his entire life studying the subject. I pretty much had to stop reading it right there.
...... and with the old destructive socialist/liberal media:
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations. -- Aldous Huxley
(Barf)
Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters
Soerll = Sowell
Sowell bump. Great column, as always.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall if he and Mark Steyn were to have dinner together. Throw in Charles Krauthammer, and that would be really interesting.
LOL! "The smartest woman in the world" (retch) LOL
Two or more generations of electronic mass-media talking has left us all with an exaggerated regard for aired words, not facts. So the losers in an argument never deal with the facts that are against them, but come back with words slanted to make them look like winners. The electronic mass media picks them up and leaves the viewers of the evening news with a 180 degree wrong impression.
I guess it's called "spin". The truth spinner always ends up pointing in the opposite direction. That's called "lies".
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