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.
Or to put it more simply, if we don't report it, it never happened.
There are few people today who think and write more clearly than Thomas Sowell. As a matter of fact, I can't name any offhand...
This is nothing new. The Big Lie has always been effective, or to rephrase the Wizard's First Rule, people are stupid and will believe what they really want to believe.
bump
The Left and some on the Right believe We are too stupid for our own good. The fact is, some of us are. (mostly the gullible, uneducated and misinformed)
BUMP
See my tag line. Homer said this on an episode of The Simpsons, and I contend it's one of the greatest pieces of truth and wisdom ever uttered. Matt Groening didn't know how unintentionally prescient those words would be.
I've never been as convinced as I am today that the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" was written as a description of liberal policies. Well, that and "insanity is the definition of doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different outcome."
Mark
I took a Marxist economics class in college (I needed a 300 level eco class, and it was the only one available that would fit in with my schedule, and besides, I had the professor for eco101, and he was fantastic). Interestingly enough, the professor was an avowed Marxist, which he completely hid from his students while teaching eco101, something that I think was really quite a wonderful thing...
It was the biggest load of clap-trap I ever had to wallow through. Tons of "philospophical" stuff that gave me a headache. His theories of work, profit, and "Dialectic Materialism?" What a pant load! I'm convinced that most people who follow Marxism simply never understood what he was talking about, therefore they assumed that he was smarter than them, and QED, must be right! The few followers who DID understand it only did so because they realized how they could manipulate the system to put themselves at the top of the food chain, economicly.
I never was able to get through Das Kapital... It was a bigger snoozer than Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit," and that's saying something!
Mark
;-)
I read an article this morning where the columnist was comparing our present situation to WWII. The man stated the Germany HAD NO NAVY! I was wondering about all those submarines that were giving the Brits fits and the minor annoyances of the Bismarck and the Turpitz. Who knew?
The man is actually pretty correct. According to the Versailles Treaty, Germany could have really no navy (ie - no subs, no battleships, etc.). Hitler just ignored that piece of paper in the mid 1930s. Fortunately for us, it was not enough time before WWII to really build a real full navy.
"Liberals see what they believe.. Conservatives believe what they see" - Dick Armey
Liberals and the MSM continue to promote their lies with "We don't have the proof, BUT the STORY is true" mantra.
Sowell, brother!
IMHO "spin" is simple the PC phrase for denoting a lie. Another Klintoon legacy.
To see the effects of Marxist structures, you ought to read Sowell's 'Conflicts and Conquests' book. On the chapter on the Africans, he makes the point that once the African nations become independent, the Western-educated blacks who took over tried to implement the Marxist economic theories - a total disaster that sometimes led to rapid military/totalitarian regime change. The quote 'One man, one vote... ONE TIME.' rang true...
10. Tom DeLay is guilty of whatever that DA in Texas says he is guilty of, and is part of the problem of the dreadful rule by Republicans.
11. The loss of civility in politics is the fault of Republicans.
Sowell's "Basic Economics" is a must read.
It'd be great if this was solely the province of the left, but it's not.
One close Den friend recently exclaimed that the rich (those making one hundred thousand or more) don't pay any taxes. When I told him that gov stats show that the upper fifty percent of income in the U.S. pay more than 96% of all federal income taxes, he flat out refused to believe me. Because he had been told by his lib puppetmasters that people who made more money than he did didn't pay taxes. He also refuses to believe that Hussein EVER!!! had any wmds. Even though his heroes Clinton, Kerry, and the rest of them at one time said he did. He doesn't want to know the truth.
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