OOF! Sorry for the rants in response to your posts these last few days Rich. It's not directed at you personally. You just happened to come along with some good thoughts on a few hot button issues (with me at least). Your timing just happened to be perfect to get me in rant mode. Please don't take any of it personally. I'm just letting off some steam at those issues, not you.
:-)
I understand the gentlemen's agreement you have with your friend. That's quite admirable. Besides, there's nothing the two of you could affect beyond each other's POV's, so why risk ruining a solid friendship. In fact it makes sense, particularly if your friend doesn't seek to gain more than a general understanding of key issues.
Folks like you & your friend may have strong emotional ties to conservative or liberal ideologies. And like most folks, neither of you have the time, the desire or the ability to access to the information, materials & qualified experts necessary to gain a deep understanding of each & every issue we face today.
Generally most folks still must rely mainly on the MSM, the DNC, and the GOP to inform them. From person to person there will be different levels of understanding of the issues due to the varying levels of time, effort & sources used. It makes sense that some folks will be inclined to only hear what they want to hear & blithely ignore what cuts against their ideology. I can understand that many folks like this would be inclined to be staunchly one sided in their POV's & frequently be ill informed.
So why risk losing a strong friendship knowing this to be the case?
However, there are folks who are actively engaged in political dialog who have considerably less reason to be let off the hook for feigning ignorance of the facts. With the internet, blogs & alternate media, folks who actively participate in political activities & debate are exposed to far more facts & evidence of the issues of the day. Don't expect me to be very forgiving of their unwillingness to change their POV when they have been exposed to independently verifiable facts & evidence that runs contrary to that POV. I'm even less inclined to be forgiving when they almost immediately resort to personal attacks, straw man arguments & repeating thoroughly discredited myths as their first lines of defense.
One thing I won't do though is excuse politicians & journalists. There's no way I'm letting them off with the lame excuse that due to their emotional attachment to their leftist ideology, they should be forgiven for all of the illegal, immoral, unethical tactics they have openly & knowingly embraced.
These people are supposed to be professionals, unlike the general public. We have been taught to rely on them to give us an honest, reasonable & objective assessment of the key facts & evidence regarding the issues of the day (with the understanding that the DNC & GOP will have a bias). The MSM has an obligation to be non-partisan & objective, not only because they are professionals - they have repeatedly led us to believe this for decades by their regular assertions of non-partisan objectivity & their adamant denials of bias when they are accused of it. And don't forget their supposed teaching about ethical journalistic standards in college, their alleged standards of excellence in the newsrooms & the multiple layers of fact checkers & editors they always remind us about.
These politicians & journalists are expected to have a considerably deeper understanding of every issue & fully inform the public of the pros & the cons. Not only do they have exponentially better access to all of the facts & evidence, they have large staffs who are required to be on top of these issues before they inform the public. And they are expected to not only be ethical, but adhere to certain prescribed ethical standards at all times.
You can't convince me many leading politicians in the DNC & journalists in the MSM aren't aware they have engaged in the most outrageous lies, deceptions, distortions, misrepresentations, slanders, smears, cover ups, withholding of key facts, or otherwise engaged in a "by any means necessary" program to mislead the public. To claim that what we are seeing from them in the real world today can all be explained away as an inability to grasp reality due to their emotional attachment to a political ideology is complete BS. These people have detailed access to & knowledge of a plethora of the facts & evidence that is constantly updated as time & events unfold. At some point even the most partisan ideologues among them have to be fully aware that they have cast aside any moral & ethical consideration & are actively engaged in willfully misinforming the public.
To chalk it up to denial via emotional political attachment given today's reality would mean almost every one of these so called elite professionals & political leaders are in fact ideological extremists who deeply embrace only one hard line political philosophy. Not only that, it would mean these professionals are so deep in denial they are utterly incapable grasping of reality when confronted with it 24/7, yet they manage to report something entirely different to the public day after day. And they would be doing it without blinking an eyelash, confidently believing they are informing the public honestly, objectively & accurately?
What do you think the odds of that are? I can assure you, I'm not buying into it at all. Bottom line - many, if not most of these people know full well what they are doing. There's simply too much evidence for it to have any other rational or credible explanation. There is absolutely no excuse for the outrageous, often treacherous behavior of far too many of today's journalists & politicians. NONE!
WHEW! I feel better now.
:-) |
