Image via WikipediaRead related » PolitiFiction
True 'lies' about ObamaCare.
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“So the watchdog news outfit called PolitiFact has decided that its "lie of the year" is the phrase "a government takeover of health care." […] PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and "facts," rather than differences of world view or principles. PolitiFact wants to define for everyone else what qualifies as a "fact," though in political debates the facts are often legitimately in dispute. […] In fact—if we may use that term without PolitiFact's seal of approval—at the heart of ObamaCare is a vast expansion of federal control over how U.S. health care is financed, and thus delivered. The regulations that PolitiFact waves off are designed to convert insurers into government contractors in the business of fulfilling political demands, with enormous implications for the future of U.S. medicine. […] [I]ts animating conceit is that opinions are what ideologues have, when in reality PolitiFact's curators also have political views and values that influence their judgments about facts and who is right in any debate. […] For a bill that in reality will raise health costs and reduce patient choice, [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] recalls Mary McCarthy's famous line about every word being a lie, including "the" and "and".”
— DECEMBER 23, 2010 (wsj.com)
“Truth is not assertion, and assertion is not proof.”Although synonyms abound, even a cunning linguist like Yesam Chumpsky understands that individual words have unique meanings. Nevertheless, it is astounding how misused the word "fact" is, especially in political debate.
— TheBigHenry's Truth Predicate
The vast majority of people engaging in any form of political discourse wouldn't know a "fact" if it fact them in the ass. Yes, you can quote me on that (with attribution).
The most common form of misuse is the ubiquitous conceit that a "fact" can be established by assertion, viz. "I am not an ideologue". Not only is that quote not a fact, it is not even wrong! When asserted by certain spewers of ideology, it is nothing short of preposterous.
And yet, if you peruse a typical post on a blog that invites unmoderated reader comments, you will not be surprised, I would hope, to discover that the majority of comments are replete with assertions masquerading as facts. What purpose does that serve? Even when the readers restrain themselves from ad hominem remarks, in most cases such threads are largely semi-polite flame-wars.
BTW, it goes without saying that my above remarks are merely my opinions, for the fact remains that I am not a hypocrite.
Post 1,520 Neither Fact nor Proof
No comments:
Post a Comment