I don't reject comments just because I disagree with the commenter's opinion. If you actually read the comments, you will see that I often publish comments by people who disagree with me in some way. I do reject comments that are factually ridiculous or illogical. Sometimes I publish them and rebut them, but I can't be bothered to do that with all of the nonsense that comes my way.
Because I don't read Faux News, Newsmax, Onan, or Russian propaganda, half the time I don't even know what the bizarre conspiracy theory is that they're talking about. But just for example, claiming that NATO broke up Yugoslavia or the U.S. provoked the Syrian civil war by financing IS and Al Qaeda is not worth my time or anybody else's to argue with. These claims are as absurd as saying that the United States caused Hitler to attack Poland. Now supposedly CDC is withholding data of some kind, although what that data may be and why it matters is unspecified. If you want to do your own research, go here. They push out data to the public through a firehose.
Sorting truth from fiction is apparently harder for some people than it seems to me. But the first piece of advice I can give is to understand what sources are at least trying to proffer truth, and which ones are blatantly lying to you. I have plenty of criticisms of the New York Times, their conventional ways of framing issues, how they treat lying politicians,what they treat as important. (Hillary Clinton's e-mails?) You have to learn how to read between the lines sometimes. But they do have standards of factual accuracy and they correct their errors, at least in the news columns. (Not so much in the opinion columns.) This is not true of Fox News, which constantly spews blatant lies.
It may be tempting to fit the facts to your preconceptions or the way you want the world to be, but you have to learn to work in the opposite direction. The world is what it is, whether you like it or not.
3 comments:
Hear, hear.
We're in deep shit if we can't agree that there are some objective realities.
I was at a farmers' market here in southern Florida last week and talking to a guy from Trinidad, whom I buy nuts, dried fruit and other yummy stuff from. We were talking a bit of politics and he suddenly pulled me aside and told me that the woman in the stall next to him, who sells jewelry, had just told him that she is totally convinced that Shitler won the election -- and that he has control of the U.S. Army.
He was speechless.
I presume you're referring to some of my arguments. This makes me sad because, in the past, I have either been personally involved or have worked with those who were. When I tell you, for example, that the CIA started shipping weapons to Syria in 2012, or that they were at odds with the DoD and certain SOCOM personnel over training jihadis into 2017, I speak from a position of specific knowledge. I have no idea whatsoever the ideas spread via q-anon (though I should start tracking that) or various state propaganda organs. My open source info comes from LeMonde, Asahi Shimbun, Der Speigel, Haaretz, etc...
Mo, the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The U.S. shipping weapons to Syria did not cause it to happen. I have already acknowledged that the U.S. provided support to some militias that turned out to consist of or contain Islamists and who did not, as they were expected to do, fight IS but fought Syrian government force or other elements,and that this was a mistake. But you claimed that U.S. actions precipitated the Syrian civil war, which is ridiculous.
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