tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18412085789431345982024-03-13T23:29:38.381-07:00The AlternativeDr. Carl Perrin spent a half a century trying to save Western Civilzation by teaching thousands of college freshmen important stuff, like the difference between <i>its</i> and <i>it's.</i> Now he is ready to go on to bigger and better things.grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.comBlogger493125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-50091455538419000292022-11-27T10:10:00.002-08:002022-11-29T05:33:35.675-08:00MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA
According to Gallup, American’s confidence in newspapers and television news is at an all-time low. There is reason to be suspicious of news media. They don’t always get things right. <p>
For example, I recall a news article about an American soldier. The article said he was a first sergeant. Then it referred to his platoon. Wait a minute. An infantry company has four platoons. But the first sergeant is not attached to a platoon. He is part of the company headquarters. A follow-up article referred to the man as a sergeant first class. Sergeant first class is a military rank. First sergeant is a position in a military company.<p>
Another example that comes to mind is the presidential election of 2004. Two months before the election Sixty Minutes aired a story that made a false statement about George W Bush’s service in the Texas Nation Guard. The story was based on documents to Sixty Minutes had received. It turned out that the documents were forged. When the forgery was discovered, Dan Rather said that if he had known that, he would not have gone ahead with the story. <p>
So journalists, like the rest of us, are imperfect human beings. They make mistakes sometimes. But that is not the end of it. They have means in place to minimize errors. News writers work with editors so that some of these mistakes can be caught and corrected before the story goes to print or on the air or online. Some mistakes still get through. When errors are caught after the item has been released to the public, responsible journalists make corrections. The news item about the man they identified as first sergeant was really a sergeant first class. Sixty Minutes admitted that they had been conned and corrected itself.<p>
Sure we might sometimes get an incorrect story from the mainstream media, but we know that the media makes an effort to minimize false stories. And if they sometimes fail, the media will make an effort to correct their errors. With false media, on the other hand, we know that they are deliberately trying to sell stories that they know to be false. At the very least we have to be skeptical of any “news” put forth by known disseminators of untrue stories.<p>
Donald Trump, for example, lied as often as he told the truth. The Washington Post kept track of the false or misleading statements he made while he was in office. In four years he told 30,537 lies.<p>
30,537 lies!<p>
The President of the United States!<p>
After that performance, why would anyone believe anything he said?
Another notorious prevaricator is Alex Jones. At Sandy Hook Elementary School Adam Lanza murdered twenty children and one teacher. The worst thing a parent can face is the loss of a child at any age. (Believe me, I know.) How much worse it must have been for these people to lose their innocent children in such a senseless event. Yet Jones claimed the whole thing was a hoax, staged to motivate limitations on the ownership of fire arms. For adding more pain to the pain of their loss, Jones has been ordered to pay $473 million to the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.<p>
These are only two of the most notorious fabricators. There are many more, including several “new” commentator qt Fox News, QAnon, and many of the MAGA promoters.<p>
Sure, the Mainstream news is not perfect. They sometimes get things wrong. But the most egregious of the con artists are so often false that it would be a mistake to believe any of the garbage they spew unless it is confirmed by a reliable source.<p>
I don’t know what motivates some people to make these false statements. Much of it seems to be greed. They tell these lies for political or financial advantage. That seems to be the in the two men we have cited. Others may be deluded themselves. Still others might be suffering from psychological problems that makes them see the world upside down. Whatever their moral, intellectual or psychological weakness, we need to avoid seeing the world through their flawed vision.<p>
We rely on information we get to make decisions about our lives. We owe it to ourselves to make decisions based reliable information.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-38118703574239544972022-06-14T07:16:00.004-07:002022-06-15T03:18:39.293-07:00ACCURATE INFORMATION
After the development of the personal computer, a need arose to train people on how to use these new gadgets. Schools met this need by offering classes to people who wanted to learn how to use computers for such things as word processing and email. Since that time, computer capabilities have grown infinitely. With the development of the internet, people are able to look up information on virtually anyone or anything.
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With the development of the iPhone in 2007, information available through search engines has become even easier. In developed countries almost everyone, including children, has access to all the information that is available on the internet. Even in less developed countries cell phone use is widespread.
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The problem is: much of the available information is false. A major example of this is the lies about Covid 19 that have been spread over the internet. Because of these lies, large numbers of people have refused to get vaccinated against this deadly disease, and many have died because of this refusal. Another Big Lie that has been disseminated is the claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Because so many people believed that lie, thousands of believers ascended to the Capitol on January 6, 2020, and tried to overthrow the presidential election. People died from this insurrection.
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Two generations ago the schools answered a need by teaching people how to use these new devices. The challenge now is to educate people so they will not be taken in by the next lies that are spread over the internet.
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People need to develop a skepticism about what they read over the internet and indeed about any source of information. They need to evaluate sources of information and recognize that news from QAnon is not as valid as news from the New York Times. It is not a matter of politics. Liz Cheney is not the only conservative Republican that recognizes that “facts” believed by the MAGA crowd are probably not factual.
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People have died because they believed false information about Covid 19. We could lose our democracy if too many people believe the lies that come from the MAGA crowd and their like.
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Schools need to rise to the task again. People need to be educated so they will not fall for the lies that are spread over the internet. They need to learn how to evaluate information sources. Lives and American democracy are at stake.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-75133376450969139752022-03-09T07:59:00.000-08:002022-03-09T07:59:08.387-08:00Handbook for HumanistsAbout forty years ago I wrote a series of articles dealing with ethical issues, like the following:<P>
What does it mean to be free? Can you really be free if you have a distorted view of reality?
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Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, taught us that some laws are unjust. Are we obligated to follow unjust laws? If everyone is entitled to disobey laws that he considers unjust, will the result be chaos? How do we decide if a law is just or not?
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How do logic and intuition play together to help us discover truth? And how do we find the best decision in morally ambiguous questions?
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I never tried to publish these writings, but recently I decided to have copies made for my children and grandchildren in a book I am calling it <i>Handbook for Humanists.</i> If you know of someone who might like to read this, it is available on Amazon. The paperback is $7.95, the kindle is $2.99.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-68030273906571255882021-11-30T05:12:00.002-08:002021-12-13T04:08:41.647-08:00LIES
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Coronavirus vaccines are capable of altering a person's DNA<P>
- The vaccines contain microchips that allow people to be tracked<P>
- The vaccines contain lung tissue from aborted fetuses<P>
- The vaccines are capable of causing infertility<P>
All of these statements are false, yet a survey showed that 20% of Americans believed at least one of them.
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28% of Americans believe that harmful effects of the corona virus vaccine are being deliberately hidden from the public.
A survey taken by the University of Oxford revealed that more than a fifth believed that the corona virus crisis is a hoax.
60% of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
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17 % of Americans believe that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics.”
Belief in these false statements is damaging to all of us. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died, many of them needlessly because so many people, relying on misinformation, refused to follow common-sense advice such as masking, keeping a safe distance, and getting a vaccination.
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Although numerous studies showed the 2020 election to be free and fair, millions of Americans believed instead that it was somehow stolen. Hundreds of them, many of them armed, assembled in Washington, D C, on January 6 to try to prevent the Congress from doing its constitutional duty of certifying the election.
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The government of the United States is finding it more difficult to function because of the animosity between the two political parties. Much of this hostility has grown out of lies about the supposedly stolen election.
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Misinformation, particularly about politics, has always been with us. In 1994 the Weekly World News reported that 12 United States senators, including William Cohen of Maine, were aliens from outer space. Cohen just laughed it off, because who would believe such an outrageous story? That was then, but today outrageous stories are a daily fare.
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What has changed? Many elements contributed to the change, but two have been particularly powerful. One is the former President of the United States. The Washington Post kept track of the lies and misleading statements that Donald Trump made in office. It was 16,241. The President of the United States! 16,241 lies in office! How can anyone believe anything that man says?
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The second big contributor to the spread of misinformation has been the social media, particular Facebook. 36% of Americans regularly access Facebook for news. Facebook! Not the local newspaper like the Boston Globe! 71% get at least some of their news from Facebook. Papers like the Globe, The New York Times or the Chicago Tribune have editors who check news sources for accuracy. Facebook has no one to check on articles written or posted by your crazy uncle. Facebook is not a news source. It is a platform where anyone can post pretty much anything they want. Why would any sane person believe that what he read on Facebook is news? Misinformation experts see a connection between reliance on social media for news and a belief in false ideas about COVID-19. So it is not just the outrageous liars like QANON and Alex Jones who spread misinformation. It is also common everyday people who spread conspiracy theories through the social media.
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According to the French Reboot Foundation, conspiracy theories help explain complicated events where the truth may be too hard to accept. Those who believe conspiracy theories are more likely to accept misinformation, particularly if it seems to confirm what they already believe. Numerous studies have shown that conservatives are far more susceptible to political misinformation than are liberals. As we look at issues involved in misinformation, we can see that almost all of them reflect a conservative point of view. Older people also are susceptible to misinformation. Being an older person myself, I am not sure why that is so. Perhaps it is because until recently traditional news sources were pretty reliable, unlike QANON or Facebook.
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What can be done about this? Fake news hurts people, and people who are hurt can sue. One of Alex Jones’s most outrageous lies was that statement that the shootings of 20 children and 6 teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax. Ten families sued Jones. The court ruled against him. People who spread harmful misinformation need to be held accountable.
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Arizona State University offers some guidelines that come help protect us from fake news.
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1. Pay attention to where your news is coming from.<P>
“If it's coming through your Twitter, Facebook or Instagram feed, don't think of it as information from those platforms, because it’s not,” said Scott Ruston, a researcher in ASU’s Global Security Initiative.
"Ask yourself, 'Who is this coming from and what is the background?' If the article you read makes accusations, ask yourself, 'Who does this benefit? What’s the underlying source material?' For example, the U.S. Department of State recently identified disinformation campaigns about the coronavirus in Europe," Ruston said. In those cases, strident claims about dangers to residents were made in order to undermine the government.
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2. If you get information from social media, check the original source. <P>
“When someone asks you where you heard something, if your first inclination is to say Twitter, you need to stop and check because Twitter itself tells you nothing,” said Kristy Roschke, co-director of the News CoLab in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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“Twitter gives people a feed of people who will tell you things," she said. "Ask questions like, ‘What's the actual post?’ ‘What's the thing that's telling you this piece of information?’ ‘Who is that person?’ 'Is it a media organization you've never heard of before?’
"You can find all of that information in a Twitter profile. There's basic information you can find with a millisecond of extra effort. People who have credibility generally put information in their bios to bolster their credibility.”
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3. Within news articles, examine the sources and how they are included.
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“Look for how sources are treated and referenced,” Ruston said. “Journalists that work for traditional news outlets like AZCentral, CNN and the New York Times have a set of professional ethics guidelines and will assert their sources. The best is when the sources are named, the next best is when the names have been concealed for the protection of the source. However, it’s appropriate to be skeptical of articles that depend solely on unattributed sources without any kind of corroboration.”
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4. Read beyond the headline.<P>
“It's important to read the story fully," Ruston said. "Very often, headlines are misleading and are not there to inform you. The purpose of the headline is to get you to click on the link or to buy the newspaper, or to tune in if you're channel surfing.”
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5. Get your news from a variety of sources.
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People should check with additional news sources to confirm information they feel strongly about.
“If you read something and if your reaction is any sort of extreme emotion, outrage or unmitigated joy, that’s a clear indicator that you should definitely read more deeply,” Ruston said. “Many of the disinformation examples we’ve come across in our research are designed not to inform but rather to activate a strong anger or fear response.”
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6. When you see your friends and family share misinformation, correct them.<P>
“Always be kind when helping people identify misinformation. Don't insult people's intelligence," Roschke said. “Don't repeat lies, because when you emphasize the thing that they got wrong, they're actually cognitively more likely to remember the thing they got wrong. You want to provide them with new information that comes from a source as reputable as possible.”
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7. Find out what other information is out there.
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“I really believe in expertise, which is why I really like NPR as a news source because there is deep expertise both from perspective of journalistic integrity and in selection of credible sources,” said Nadya Bliss, executive director of the Global Security Initiative. “I've actually done this where somebody will tweet something and I would think, ‘That's interesting, I wonder if it's true.’ Then, I will go separately into a Google search and pull up the news articles on it and see what's written about that topic.”
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-62017911456430668162021-08-19T05:38:00.028-07:002021-08-19T05:45:27.121-07:00WHAT CAN YOU BELIEVE?
Some people think that we should not tax the ultra-wealthy or business very much because to do so would cause enterprises and enterprisers to have less motivation to succeed, and it would have a negative effect on business in the country. I do not agree with that position, but I do not think it is irrational or crazy.<P>
I say this because I consider many ideas of conservative Republicans are indeed irrational and crazy. It is not necessarily irrational to make decisions based on misinformation. Every decision we make is based on what information we have, and we do not always have the best information possible. We can’t always get the best information, and we have to make choices based on the data we have.<P>
However, any choice we make based on false data is not going to have the best result. And if we make a decision based on false data when the real data is readily available is indeed irrational.<P>
Well-known extreme right-wing sources such as QANON and Alex Jones are not the only ones who spread misinformation. Online publication such as Natural News contribute to outright lies and distortion of truth that gets spread over the internet. On August 10 Natural News stated that the governor of Tennessee has issued an executive order authorizing the National Guard to carry out medical kidnappings. According to them, the guard could break into people’s homes, kidnap them at gunpoint, and take them to covid internment camps.<P>
If this were true, it would be shocking, but of course it was not true. What the executive order actually did was authorize the guard to help in the covid emergency by such things as diagnostic testing, nursing, and ambulance services.<P>
The story did not originate with Natural News. It had been posted on Instagram, but it was a satire. Natural News, not realizing that it was tongue in cheek, took the satire as fact and ran with it.<P>
Here are links to two more articles from that source of “news.”<P>Biden wants to criminalize crossing state lines while “unvaccinated” - NaturalNews.com<P>
Feds declare anti-vaxxers are “terrorists,” unveil 90-day plan to wage false flag violence and blame it on “anti-lockdown extremists” - NaturalNews.com<P>
The social media also spreads false stories. One such story stated that airline flights were backed up across the country because pilots and crew were walking off flights and refusing to take mandated vaccines. In fact, the flight delays were caused by weather.<P>
Another story stated that the Canadian province of Alberta had lifted Covid-19 restrictions because health officials had provided no evidence that the virus exists. In fact, the restrictions were lifted because predetermined goals had been met.<P>
If you challenge anyone who believes wild tales like these, they will say you have been fooled by the mainstream media. But I ask you: What is more believable: sources like the New York Times or sources like Natural News?
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-23424347894448569572021-07-28T12:17:00.002-07:002021-08-05T12:02:01.225-07:00 A Bitter PillPoliticians are not known for honesty. However, in recent years political lying has sunk to new lows. The 45th President promoted over 20,000 bits of information during his term in office. The result has left the country in a precarious position.
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=carl+perrin&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss"> A Bitter Pill</a> on kindlegrammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-40106747627414431572021-07-23T07:32:00.001-07:002021-07-23T07:32:56.002-07:00 A Bitter Pill to Swallow With few exceptions, politicians have not been known for their dedication to the truth. However, in the last half a dozen years, political lying has reached new depths. The Washington Post in tracking the 45th president found that during his term in office he made over 30,000 false or misleading statements. That has to be a record. Not only did he fill the air with his lies, but for the most part members of his party went along with him. <P>
Presumably most members of his party knew that the president’s statements were not exactly the truth, but they feared that if they spoke out, the president would use his power with his followers to end the political careers of anyone who opposed him.<P>
The result, in my opinion, has left the country in a precarious position. Ac-tions have been taken to placate one man rather than the good of the country. Politi-cians, particularly at the state level, have whittled away at the principles of democ-racy. I am not particularly given worry, but I worry, for the first time in my life, that democracy could be lost.<P>
For the past year I have been writing in The Alternative about events that seem to endanger democracy in our country. I have put together these postings in a little book that I am calling A Bitter Pill to Swallow. <P>
I am now preparing A BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW as a kindle book. I hope to have ready soon.grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-57521886345426734392021-05-29T08:09:00.001-07:002021-05-29T08:15:53.875-07:00PANTS ON FIRE
On January 6, thousands of insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. They broke through locked doors and windows to gain entrance to the building. The rioters were armed with baseball bats, pipes, flag poles, stun guns, bear spray, pepper spray, and plastic handcuffs, among other things. They attacked the police officers trying to protect the building. The officers suffered bruises, lacerations, concussions, fractured ribs, burns, shattered spinal disks, irritated lungs, brain damage, and stabs from metal fence stakes. One officer lost an eye. Lasers were pointed towards the offices’ eyes. They were maced and trampled and hit multiple times with weapons in the hands of the mob. In the following days 38 officers tested positive for the coronavirus, likely caught from the unmasked invaders. One hundred and forty police officers were injured in the melee.<P>
Five people died in the attack, including Officer Brian Sicknick. He was hit with a fire extinguisher and doused with pepper spray. He died from a stroke the next day. Two other officers who had defended the building committed suicide the following day.
There is no doubt about the rioters’ purpose in this attack. They mounted this insurrection, shouting “Fight for Trump!” in order to try to prevent Congress from performing its constitutional duty of confirming the democratic election of Joe Biden to the presidency. They believed that somehow the election should rightly have gone to Donald Trump and was in some way stolen from him.<P>
And the assertion that the election had been stolen was a BIG LIE.<P>
While this chaos was taking place in the halls of the Capitol building, members of Congress were in hiding, some of them rightfully in fear for their lives.<P>
Despite this anarchy, in May a Trump supporter, Congressman Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, stated that the insurrection had ben nothing but a “normal tourist day.” Another Big Lie.<P>
Where do all this lies come from? A lot of places. Too many places. Of course lying, particularly about political events, is not new. In 1994 a tabloid paper, Weekly World News, published an article which stated that twelve members of the United States Senate were aliens from outer space. The named senators laughed it off, and I doubt that anyone took the article seriously.<P>
There have been many changes since 1994. For one thing the former president of the United States is a notorious liar. According to the Washington Post, which kept track, Trump made over 30,000 false or misleading claims while he was in office. And he was not alone. People like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Alex Jones contributed to the disinformation that saturated the internet. The internet itself helped transmit wild conspiracy theories and other misinformation. <P>
Far right news organizations helped spread the poisonous lies. When Fox News was not extreme enough for the president, he turned to even more dangerous news sites like News Max and OAN (American News Network). Forty percent of people who trust these “news” sources believe that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.” Almost half them believe that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders.”<P>
For many people Facebook is a better source of news than The New York Times. Yet Facebook is reluctant to eliminate lies from its postings, even though they reported a lot of misinformation posted on their site comes from Russia. For 30 percent of Republicans Trump himself, the Great Prevaricator, is the primary news source. Sixty-one percent of Trump news followers believe that major voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election.<P>
According to a Reuters/lpsos poll 25 percent of Americans believe that Trump is still the true president. Even though there is no evidence that left-wing activists participated in the January 6 riot, 32 percent of Americans agree that it “was led by violent left-wing protestors trying to make Trump look bad.”<P>
Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Wehner said, “political violence will become more acceptable and more prevalent on the American right” if the Republican Party “doesn’t counteract these lies rather than indulge them.” <P>
We are living in dangerous times. The assault on the Capitol building was an assault on democracy itself. Around the country state legislatures are chipping away at democracy by limiting access to voting. All of these anti-democratic actions are motivated by lies which are believed by large numbers of Americans.<P>
I don’t know what can be done about the lies that are sucking people in, but something must be done. Failure to act may cost us our democracy.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-91508375292448112282021-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:002021-02-18T10:00:28.818-08:00THE BELIEVERS
A lot of Americans believe in conspiracy theories, including those put forth by QAnon: that leaders of the Democratic party practice child pornography, and Donald Trump was sent to get rid of those awful people. Further, Donald Trump would have been reelected had it not been for numerous irregularities in the vote. Voting machines had somehow turned votes for Trump into votes for Biden, and election officials had thrown out vast numbers of Trump votes.
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What would lead large numbers of people to believe things that others see as irrational and obviously ridiculous? Studies have shown that people who believe such lies have some personality traits in common that lead them to accept these theories. They believe that nothing happens by coincidence. Everything is controlled by secret cabals that permeate all levels of society. These cabals might be Jews or Catholics or liberals or just the rich people who control everything. Believers tend to have feelings of anxiety and uncertainty because they feel they are not in control of their own lives.
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Thousands of believers descended on Washington on January 6 to prevent the Congress from formally certifying the Electoral College vote that named Joe Biden president. Many of the rioters were professional people, business owners, off-duty police officers, and even one state legislator. Yet many of these middle class people had reason to feel that their lives were out of control. Sixty percent of them had a history of financial problems. Sixty percent!
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One of these, for example, was Jenna Ryan, a real estate agent from Texas. She was paying a $37,000 lien on unpaid federal taxes. She had nearly lost her home to foreclosure, and filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and had faced an IRS lien in 2010.
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Jacob Chansley, the man who called himself the “QAnon Shaman,” is another whose life seemed out of control. He has been described as a failed actor. He’s 32-years old, and he lives with his mother.
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Both Ryan and Chansley expressed regret for their actions and disillusion with the conspiracy theories had bought them to Washington. Ryan said, “I bought into a lie...and it’s embarrassing. I regret everything.” Chansley said, “I am sorry for raising fear in the hearts of others. That was wrong. Period.” He also said he was “deeply disappointed in former President Trump. He was not honorable.”
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Roy Watkins, founder of 8chan, a website that has been linked to white supremacy, Neo-Nazism, and antisemitism, told his supporters, “to go back to their own lives.” One of the followers said, “We all got played.”
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Many believers thought that on January 20, Trump would somehow ride to the rescue and arrest members of the “deep state.” Instead they saw Biden get inaugurated. As one of the former believers said, “He [Trump] sold us out.”
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One false story that is floating around the internet is that on March 4, Trump will be inaugurated. (Inauguration Day used to be on March 4, but the last time it was on that date was 1933.) When the inauguration of Donald Trump doesn’t happen on March 4, more of the believers will lose their delusions.
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The attack on The Capitol on January 6 occurred because thousands of people believed the lies about the government. We cannot allow this to happen again. Even without the attack on the attack on the Capitol, misinformation that has spread through the internet has done terrible damage to the country. People who are willing to lie to move people to illegal action must be made to pay for spreading false information through the internet. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects web sites from paying for damage caused by anything posted on their sites by a third party. Section 230 must be repealed. If someone posts a dangerous message on the internet, the website where it was posted as well as the poster must be held responsible. If someone is damaged by an irresponsible statement on the internet or anyplace else, the person making the statement must be subject to suit for damages. The web site that posts the misinformation must be held responsible too.
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Voting machine companies sued those who had made false statements about them. Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell were sued. So was Fox News and news personnel who told lies about the voting machines. Lou Dobbs lost his job. We must see more of this. Liars who damage others must be made to pay for their lies.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-54279545018521154212021-02-12T09:51:00.000-08:002021-02-12T09:51:16.293-08:00THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
The riot at the Capitol building on January 6 damaged many elements of American life. Perhaps the greatest damage was to the Republican party itself. In every state of the union, horrified by the attack on Congress, tens of thousands of Republicans have withdrawn from the party.<P>
Prominent individual Republicans have been hurt by their own actions in recent months. Rudy Giuliani, dubbed “America’s mayor” after 9/11, has since made a fool of himself. No one takes him seriously any more. He has been sued for $1.3 billion by Dominion Voting Systems. Giuliani’s colleague in lying about the election, Sidney Powell, has also been sued.<P>
Fox news commentator Lou Dobbs, under threat of a suit, was forced to make an on-air retraction of some of the lies he had made about the election. Now he and the network are being sued by another company. The network fired him.<P>
CEO of My Pillow Mike Lindell has been a rabid supporter of Donald Trump and made numerous false statements about the election, insisting that Biden won only because of voter fraud. His statements were so extreme that an anchor on conservative Newsmax walked out of an interview with Lindell. Twitter closed his account. A boycott My Pillow has been started, and major retailers have stopped selling the product.<P>
Businesses that have long contributed to Republican campaigns in the past are now saying that they will not contribute to members of Congress who voted against accepting the Electoral College votes electing Joe Biden to the Presidency.<P>
Large numbers of the Capitol rioters have been arrested and charged with various crimes. It seems likely that many of these people will get some jail time.<P>
Trump himself has threatened to start a new political party. Perhaps he recognizes that the traditional Republican party would never nominate him again, and if nominated, he could not win the election. If he goes ahead with his threat, what effect would a third party have on the Republicans? Democrats must be hoping that Trump will form his Patriot party. It would mean a sure win for the Democrats.
There is a split in the party over the impeachment. When Congresswoman Liz Cheney voted for impeachment, some Republicans wanted to remove her from her leadership position in the party. Her colleagues voted to keep her leadership role, but the Republican party in her home state of Oklahoma censured her action.<P>
Typically in the election after the presidential election, the party in power loses seats in Congress. In 2022 it seems highly likely that the Democrats will increase their numbers in Congress.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-48868953481265161582021-02-03T08:12:00.000-08:002021-02-03T08:12:33.571-08:00LYING LAWYERS
In trying to support the outrageous claim that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani made some charges against voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems. He claimed that they were manufactured in Venezuela. Since Venezuela has a Socialist government, the place of manufacture would make them seem less trustworthy. Actually, the machines were made in Canada. Trump also claimed that the machines had been programmed to flip votes. Not only that, but according to Giuliani, in one Michigan county, they had flipped 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden. The charges had been backed up by an expert. As it turned out, Giuliani’s “expert” had a grave misunderstanding of the county’s voting system and a lack of knowledge of election technology. <P>
Everything about Giuliani’s charge was false, but the lies were harmful to Dominion Voting Systems, so they sued the lawyer for $1.3 billion. Another lawyer, Sydney Powell, worked with Giuliani. She made essentially the same false charges against Dominion Voting Systems. The company sued her too, also for $1.3 billion. Lies create damage, so it is appropriate that liars pay for the damage they create. <P>
Suing merchants of misinformation seems a better way to deal with them than passing laws. Unfortunately governments can’t be trusted. For the past four years Republican politicians have gone along with Trump’s lies, either through fear or cynical desire to use him to accomplish their goals at any cost. A few good lawsuits would make these people stop and think before they spout their poison.<P>
Still more needs to be done. A lot of political misstatements have ben published in the social media. Apple CEO Tim Cook referred to the social media as “Purveyors of fake news.” These purveyors of fake news don’t have to worry because they are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Act. Section 230 protects media from damages caused by misinformation posted by users on their sites.<P>
It is time to end that protection. If social media sites were held responsible for toxic posts that they allow on their sites, there would not be so many venomous lies spread over the internet.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-89999024681125355052021-01-07T15:30:00.000-08:002021-01-07T15:30:03.901-08:00OPEN LETTER TO THE VICE PRESIDENT
The attack on the United States Capitol by a frenzied mob, orchestrated by the president is unprecedented in our history. It is an attack on the country, the constitution, on democracy itself. <P>
The president must not be allowed to do further damage to the country and all that it stands for. It is imperative that the president be prevented from committing any further harm to the nation. The quickest way to protect the country from further destructive acts by the president is to invoke the 25th Amendment.<P>
Frankly, Mr. Pence, your performance as vice president under Donald Trump has not been admirable. You can reclaim some of the credit you have lost by acting to curtail Trump’s destructive power. At the same time, you will be saving the country, the constitution, and democracy itself from a man who is so demonstrably unfit to be president.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-1812759017943398552021-01-01T08:17:00.001-08:002021-01-01T08:17:37.045-08:00LIES
On December 19 Fox opinion host Lou Dobbs shot down various claims of fraud in the recent election. Specifically the show refuted false claims made against voting machines manufactured by Smartmatic. The surprising thing about the December 18 show was that the false claims had been made by Dobbs himself.<P>
Did Dobbs have an attack of conscience that forced him to recant his lies? No. It was the threat of a lawsuit by Smartmatic against Dobbs and several other Fox opinion hosts.<P>
Lies create harm. People who worked for voting machine companies as well as election officials who followed the rules have been threatened. Some have gone into hiding because of fear. The harm caused by people who lie about major issues cannot be ignored. These liars must face the consequence of damage done by their false statements.<P>
One way to make liars accountable is to bring legal action against them. It is good when that is done. But it is not enough. Some people will still be taken in by these lies which are a threat to democracy itself.<P>
People must be educated so they are less likely to believe the falsehoods that are spread over the internet. One of the reasons that democratic countries offer free schooling is that an educated public is more likely to make wise choices in elections. When personal computers became widespread, schools took up the task of teaching people how to use them.<P>
The internet gives people access to infinite information. Unfortunately, much of that information is not true. Schools must now rise to the task of teaching people how to evaluate information and separate the valid from the invalid.<P>
There are several programs that teach people how to evaluate data. Two professors at the University of Washington have a course named Calling Bullshit. Google has a media literacy program. What these courses do is show how to recognize a credible source. They teach students to check for multiple sources of verification ands to test every link in an argument’s chain. In short, these courses teach critical thinking. <P>
Disinformation does irreparable damage. Foreign propaganda machines spread their lies through social media; Misinformation about Covid-19 has caused many deaths. False ideas about environmental damage harm all of us.<P>
Liars must be made to face the consequences of their falsehoods, and we all need to educate ourselves so that we won’t be taken by their deceptions.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-15968783636658928272020-12-17T07:23:00.004-08:002020-12-17T07:23:58.841-08:00INFOWARS
From Alex Jones’s InfoWars we can learn about the involvement of the U S government in 9/11. The Sandy Hook shootings never happened. The survivors of the Stoneham Douglas High School shootings were crisis actors. The government has programs that can control weather. Prominent Democrats are involved in a child pornography ring, located in the basement of a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant.
Where does Jones get his information? Some of it he just makes up. He also gathers stories from sources like RT, a Russian state-sponsored propaganda broadcast.
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While you are perusing this misinformation, you can buy products from InfoWars, everything dietary supplements, including a medicine for Covid-19, T-shirts, hats, and coffee cups. You can even get food supplies to keep in store for the coming revolution.
I don’t know whether Jones actually believes the ideas that he peddles, but he certainly pulls in a lot of followers. InfoWars attracts 10 million visitors a month, a lot more than a straight news site would attract. People who believe in Jones’s misinformation have made him a wealthy man.
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QAnon is an anonymous website that also spreads false information. According to them North Korea’s Kim Jon Un was installed and is controlled by the CIA. Germany’s leader, Angela Merkel, is Hitler’s granddaughter. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros were involved in a plot to overthrow President Trump. They were also involved in a child sex-trafficking ring. The Rothschild family leads a satanic cult.<P>
QAnon is anonymous, though it supposedly is run by a deep member of the CIA with the highest security clearance. Margorie Taylor Greene believes the QAnon stories. In the last election she was elected to represent Georgia in Congress.
Donald Trump’s lies are too numerous to list. According to the Washington Post, which has been keeping track, Trump had made over 20,000 false or misleading statements in the first three and a half years in his administration.
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All three of these have had their lies picked up and further spread by the social media. Trump notoriously releases some of his misinformation on twitter. Rather than conduct government business through official channels, he often makes his announcements by a tweet.
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One has to wonder whether Trump’s false statements are delusional or a cynical disregard for the truth when he thinks a lie will serve his purposes better. Either way, these misstatements, along with his incompetence, demonstrate how unfit he is for the office he holds.
At any rate, over 700 million people voted for him in the recent election and vast numbers of citizens are convinced that the election was somehow stolen from him.
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What have we come to? That so many people have fallen for the lies of these charlatans?
Unfortunately, it is not just these malignant forces that have captured the minds of Americans. The social media echoes the lies and false conspiration that Alex Jones et al project. From time to time Facebook or Twitter will temporarily suspend Alex Jones or label Donald Trump’s accounts as less than accurate. But it is usually too little, too late. Millions of people depend on sources like Facebook rather than traditional sources for their news.
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It is not enough to try to reform the social media. The answer lies elsewhere. In a future post we will look at how we can minimize the damage done by these malevolent forces.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-87783391226685335382020-11-05T11:57:00.000-08:002020-11-05T11:57:24.361-08:00SHOUTING FIRE
We have freedom of speech in this country, but there are limitations on that freedom. As Justice Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr., said, we are not free to “shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” Spreading misinformation is another way to cause harm. Foreign countries, who do not have our best interests at heart, spread misinformation through the social media. Russia, Iran, and North Korea post false stories on Facebook and other media. Their purpose is to create discord, influence our elections, and weaken the country. If people base their voting choices on untruths, the outcome can be a disaster, as it was in the 2016 election.
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People have died when decisions were made based on bogus facts. In 1998 an English doctor, Andrew Wakefield, published an article in Lancet, a medical journal. The article stated that the MMR vaccine could cause autism in children. Wakefield had a huge conflict of interest in the issue. He had been highly paid by a law group to find that the vaccine had harmed children. Further, he had faked some of the data in his study. Lancet retracted the article when they discovered the truth. Wakefield also lost his license to practice medicine. Yet to this day some people refused to be vaccinated or allow their children to be vaccinated. MMR protects against measles, mumps, and rubella. People who get any of these diseases can die from them. But no one has died or become autistic from the shot.
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Another area where misrepresentation has caused death is information about COVID 19. Unfortunately, many of the lies about the virus come from the President himself. Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died from the virus. If the country had followed common sense, science-based guidelines, according to some estimates 100,000 fewer would have succumbed to the dread illness. In October 2020 The Guardian said that Facebook was the greatest source of disinformation about Covid-19.
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Still another way that social media damages people is the psychological harm to people affected by postings. I know how painful it is to lose a child at any age, but I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been for parents of children killed by a madman at Sandy Hook. But then, to see it called a hoax on Facebook is beyond cruelty. Facebook later closed the accounts of people who posted the terrible lie about Sandy Hook, but for the parents who lost children, the damage had already been done.
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Misinformation on social media is unacceptable. It creates harm, and it must be stopped. Facebook has finally stopped postings by holocaust deniers. It also finally decided to stop posts of misinformation about Covid-19. They have the ability to stop these posts of bogus information. They cannot be allowed to permit posts of other harmful lies.
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Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act protects the social media from liability for any posts on their sites. That means that anyone can post any kind of harmful information on Facebook, and people harmed by the information cannot sue Facebook. This protection has been abused, and it must be taken away. If the social media were liable for any posts they publish, they would be more careful about what they allow. Revoking Section 203 would make the world a safer place.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-59439846678206937292020-10-13T08:26:00.001-07:002020-10-13T08:38:07.844-07:00The Damage Done by Facebook
It is the nature of politicians to lie, and not only Republicans. (I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski.) But when the President of the United States makes over 20,000 false statements in three and a half years in office, mendacity is brought to a new low. Unfortunately, in these dishonest times the Great Prevaricator has had lots of help. The social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, have helped him spread his misinformation across the country.
The President communicates more through the social media than through official channels, and for the most part these media leave his misinformation untouched. Donald Trump is not the only one who disseminates fabrications through Facebook and others. It is known, for example, that Russia spread lies through these sources to influence the 2016 Presidential election. Facebook was charged with allowing Russians to sow chaos during that election. Since the election was so close, it is very likely that Russian posts on Facebook contributed to the outcome. Other unfriendly powers, like Iran and North Korea, have also spread untruthful statements through Facebook.
It is not just foreign powers who spread fraudulent ideas through the internet. Notably QAnon has been posting poisonous ideas for the past three years. QAnon is anonymous, but it poses as an unnamed high-ranking government official. It promotes the conspiracy theory that Democrats are running a pedophile ring, and Donald Trump is leading the fight against the ring.
During the 2016 presidential campaign it was charged that Hillary Clinton was involved in such a ring that was located in the basement of a Washington pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong. One man believed the falsehood so strongly that he went to the restaurant armed with a rifle. It turned out that there was no ring, and the restaurant didn’t even have a basement.
Marjory Taylor Greene from Georgia seems sure to be elected to Congress. She supports the QAnon conspiracy theories. She also said that Barack Obama is a Muslim, liberal philanthropist George Soros is a Nazi, and she questioned whether a plane really crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.
QAnon undermines trust in public institutions through hate speech and the spread of unfound conspiracy theories.
Turning Point USA is another group that has been disseminating fraudulent stories. It published pro-Trump comments and misinformation. One of its affiliates, Turning Point Action, was paying teenagers to post messages.
Another affiliate, Rally Forge, paid users to cast doubt on mail-in ballots and spread misinformation about the coronavirus. Many of their accounts used stock photos to create false profiles.
In April 2020 websites spreading untruthful stories about health on Facebook drew nearly one half a billion views. The top ten sites peddling inaccurate information and conspiracy theories drew nearly four times as many views as the top reputable sites for health information on Facebook.
The false claim that pure alcohol could cure the virus led to 800 deaths and 60 cases of blindness after believers drank methanol as a cure.
False information and conspiracy theories downplay the public health crisis, spread disinformation about potential remedies and likely safety risks of future vaccines.
The social media have taken some steps toward correcting some of the problems created fabrications on their sites. Twitter, for example, has rules against harassment, hate speech, and incitement to violence. They eliminated many accounts that violated these rules. Facebook removed hundreds of fake profiles linked to Turning Point USA. Twitter suspended over one hundred Iranian accounts linked to issues of social justice.
When Donald Trump posted a false message that the flu is more deadly than COVID19, Facebook removed the post. Twitter left it in but added a warning label of misinformation. They also prevented it from being shared. Facebook and Google will block all political ads until after the election.
We’re glad that the social media is taking some steps to limit deceitful posts on their sites, but what they are doing is not enough. While Facebook and Twitter have removed or labelled some posts as misinformation, lot of disinformation slips through Facebook’s disinformation system. They have stopped publishing posts from QAnon and its affiliates, but individuals can still post QAnon ideas and fabrications. 93,000 active Twitter accounts refer to QAnon in their profile.
Since so many people rely on the internet for information, it is unacceptable that so much of the data in cyberspace is fraudulent. Something must be done to correct this. It is not an easy task. Liberals complain that the cloud contains so much prevarication. Conservatives charge that the social media has a liberal bias because so many of the posts that are removed have been placed by conservatives.
In a future post we will look at some of the things that can be done to make the social media more honest.b
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-3219740547062425772020-09-30T08:32:00.002-07:002020-09-30T08:32:40.831-07:00HOW TO SPOT FAKE NEWS
The internet is swimming in fake news. It is easy to be taken in by information that seems true but is far from it. Some of it is created by deluded people who see conspiracies everywhere. A lot of it is shaped by dishonest people who want to influence their readers. Several foreign countries try to influence events in the United States, such as elections. We need to be careful not to play their games. Some web sites want to get readers to click onto them because they get paid for every click. Readers are more likely to click onto sensational “news,” so it is profitable to report astonishing “information.” Some fake news was never intended to be believed. It is satire. Some readers lack the sense of humor to recognize the satire and take it seriously.
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Readers who are looking for conspiracy theories find them in the web sites they follow and repeat them on social media. Since conspiracy seekers read each other’s social media, they create an echo chamber that carry the same stories.
Mind Tools offered Six Ways to Spot Fake News.
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1.Develop a critical mindset
There are people out there who conspire to get us to believe stuff that isn’t so. Be suspicious. If it sounds extreme, check it out. Don’t believe everything you read.
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2. Check the sources
Really check them. ABCNewscom.co is not what it appears. ABCNews.com is a real news source. ABCNewcom.co is able to copy the logo of the real news site but it publishes fake news. If you aren’t familiar with the author, check him or her out. You might find that the author of sensational news does not have a very good reputation.
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3. See who else is reporting the story
Can you find the story in any mainstream media? Some people have attacked what Sarah Palin called the “lamestream media.” But the media have editorial standards and trained reporters. Most professional news sources have bias, and they all make mistakes once in a while, but professional publications are not going to publish outright lies or stories that they haven’t checked for accuracy.
A year or so ago I saw a report of a celebrity’s death on the Facebook newsfeed. When I went to check it on other sources, I couldn’t find other reference because it was fake news. Don’t believe stuff that is reported only on the social media.
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4. Examine the evidence
Does the story offer facts to back itself up? Don’t be too quick to believe it if it offers no facts. If it offers facts, check them out.
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5. Don’t take images at face value
Don’t believe everything you see. With modern technology those who spread false information can put people into a photograph or take them out. The doctored photo may look genuine, but the picture it presents never happened.
6. Check that it sounds right
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If the news sounds unbelievable, it may be because it isn’t true.
Check the story on a reliable fact checker like Snopes. Snopes will examine the facts of the story and let you know if it true, false, partly true, or out of date. I have received false stories that invited me to verify them on Snopes. When I did that, I found that Snopes had labeled them as false. I have also received messages that told me I couldn’t believe what I read on Snopes. Conspiracy theorists hate Snopes because it exposes how they play fast and loose with the truth, but Snopes has no agenda except to check the veracity of information flying around the internet.
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If you want to find the truth, get your information from reliable sources, mainstream media. Use Facebook if you want, to keep in touch with your friends and family, but don’t use it as a source of information about what’s going on in the world.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-37273770946495584782020-09-20T12:08:00.005-07:002020-09-20T12:10:45.929-07:00Making Decisions
Theories are a part of life. They are a way of dealing with things we don’t understand and making decisions about circumstances we meet. Ideally our theories evolve as we learn more about a mystery we are trying to comprehend. Misused, however, theories can become a hindrance to understanding, and decisions based on faulty theories will not lead to useful conclusions.<P>
Conspiracy theories are invalid if they cannot be proven with historical or scientific evidence. They are typically highly improbable. Finding conspiracies where none exist is a mental illness which psychologists call illusory pattern perception. <P>
Some conspiracy theories are not theories at all. They are deliberate lies told to influence the gullible. Many of the statements that come out of the Trump administration are examples of this. In our next posting we will tell how to guard against invalid conspiracy theories and lies posting as theories.<P>
These theories are typically about secret government plans or plots to take control of the world or the government. They often accuse some group of plotting to take over the country. Jews, Catholics, the Illuminati, George Soros, liberals have all been accused of such plots. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book written over a hundred years ago, accuses the Jews of a plot to take control of the world. Although the book has long since been shown to be a forgery, the accusation keeps popping up. Sometimes it is a conspiracy of world bankers (shorthand for Jews) who are involved in the plot. George Soros, a Jew, has been accused of handing out one hundred dollars to rioters (protesters) for causing trouble.<P>
Some have claimed that the moon shot never happened. It was done in Hollywood, and the American government has been fooling people ever since. Not only did the American government fake the moon shot, according to some. It also was somehow complicit in the attacks in September 11, 2001.<P>
What kind of mind comes up with ideas like these, and how gullible must people be to accept such things as true?
All of these conspiracies are harmful to someone. The charge that global warming is a liberal hoax has been harmful to everyone.
In February 2015 Senator Inhofe brought a snowball onto the floor of the Senate, thereby proving (in his mind) that global warming was a hoax. At about the same time a conservative whom I knew smirked on a cold winter day as he asked, “Has anyone heard anything about global warming lately?” Another conservative I knew conceded that the world was getting warmer. “But we don’t know,” he insisted, “if it was caused by man.” On the surface that seems to be a reasonable position. After all, we know that the earth has gone through and recovered from several Ice Ages. That was before human beings existed in the large numbers they do now or had the power to make such a drastic impact on the environment.<P>
However, there is ample evidence that global warming, or climate change, if you prefer, is caused by human activities. People release 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, largely by burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That means it traps heat from escaping earth’s atmosphere, and that is what makes the earth become warmer each year.<P>
Under the Obama administration major steps were taken toward cutting back on greenhouse gases. One major accomplishment was the Paris Accords, which was signed by 194 countries. The signers agreed to cut emissions in their countries.<P>
In the United States these cutbacks were achieved by improving fuel economy in automobiles and using more renewable energy. From 2008 to 2015 carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. fell 9.5 percent. Another way emissions were cut was by switching from coal to natural gas for power plants. Gas is much cleaner than coal and releases less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. During the Obama administration natural gas production rose 28 percent in the United States.<P>
One of the first things Donald Trump did in his misrule was to withdraw the country from the Paris Accords. He lifted the restrictions on fuel economy in American cars. He promoted what he called “beautiful, clean coal,” a meaningless phrase. He appointed Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt had worked as a lawyer for energy companies in the past. He finally resigned in 2018 under charges of questionable ethics. Before he resigned, he pulled the teeth from many of the environmental-friendly policies that had been put in place during the Obama administration.<P>
Conservatives still question whether climate change is real, but its evidence is all around us, and it gets more frightening every day. As I write, an area of 780 square miles in California has burned. That’s half the size of Rhode Island. The fires have been getting larger every year. That’s because climate change has brought warmer, dryer conditions to the forests. Other parts of the world are experiencing the same phenomena. Indonesia, Brazil, and Australia have all face devasting fires in recent years. One study estimated that climate change makes these fires 30 percent more likely.<P>
Forest fires are not the only natural phenomenon gone awry. Each year we are hit with more strong hurricanes. That is because the conditions for the storms increase over warmer ocean waters. It is ironic that some people think measures intended to decrease greenhouse gases put an unnecessary burden on business. However, the reverse is true. Procedures to cut emissions create new business opportunities, and they cost much less than the damage done by fires and hurricanes.<P>
Another conspiracy theory that has created havoc in the United States is the charge that the coronavirus is a hoax. Forcing people to wear masks in public places is a violation of their freedom. Anyway, the virus is not as deadly as it seems. It is hardly more dangerous than the flu, and it will disappear by itself anyway. Not only that, but vaccines for the virus will inject people with something that will allow them to be tracked.<P>
Unfortunately this view of the virus did not come from someone’s sick speculation. It came from an outright lie. By the President of the United States! This was revealed in Bob Woodward’s book, where the President told Woodward that he understood how dangerous the coronavirus was, but he didn’t want to alarm people! This was in Woodward’s book. Tapes of the Trump’s words were played on television, so there could be no doubt about them. It is hard to understand why anyone would believe anything he says. By the summer of 2020, fact checkers at The Washington Post determined that Trump had told 20,000 lies since the beginning of his term.
Because of the President’s failure to reveal the truth about the virus’s danger and his urging businesses and schools to reopen before they had dealt with the pandemic, businesses have failed and almost 200,000 Americans have died.<P>
It is time for us to learn the truth and reject false conspiracy theories.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-73597699113834051262020-09-10T11:21:00.004-07:002020-09-11T12:00:38.097-07:00MORE CONSPIRACY THEORIES
The conspiracy theories that one hears about seem to be pretty much ideas believed by conservatives. I wondered if my liberal bias prevented from seeing liberal conspiracy concepts for what they are, crackpot ideas. Then I began reading the assertion that both political viewpoints have their own thoughts of secret intrigue. <P>
One writer who offered this idea was Josh Hart, a psychology professor at Union College. Hart gave the idea that climate change is a hoax as an example of a conservative theory. For the liberals, Hart said the thought that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in 2016 is a conspiracy theory. As I pointed out in my September 4 post, these two theories are not equivalent.
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Let’s compare a few other conspiracy theories. First some conservative examples: The shootings of elementary students at Sandy Hook is a hoax. The Moon Landing is another staged hoax. The American government was somehow complicit in airplane crashes in September 9/11. Prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, were involved in some kind of child sex ring in the basement of a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant. The one that liberals are more likely to follow is that Donald Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed in a Moscow hotel.<P>
The conservative conspiracy stories are ludicrous. There is zero evidence to support any of them. On the contrary, major news sources have published evidence things did not happen the way theorists portray them. A sick young man did shoot elementary students at Sandy Hook. Astronauts did land on the moon. A group of Moslem extremists piloted hijacked planes into the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon. The American government had no prior knowledge of the plot. Not only was the story about Democrats being involved in a sex ring false, the restaurant where this supposedly took place didn’t even have a basement. Sarah Palin referred to the mainstream media as the “lamestream” media because it did not publish the conspiracy stories without evidence.<P>
The pee story might or might not be true. It came from a group hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump. The campaign hired Fusion GPS to look into Trump’s ties to Russia. Fusion GPS in turn hired Christopher Steele, a retired British intelligence agent. Evidently Steele heard stories about Trump hiring prostitutes to urinate on a bed in a Moscow hotel. The reason he wanted that done is that the bed had once been occupied by Barack and Michelle Obama.<P>
We don’t know if the story is true. If it is true, it is not a nice thing to do, but it pales beside Trump’s many disgraceful acts.
There is another difference between the conservative conspiracy theories and liberal theories. That is the strength of the belief. Conservatives are strongly convinced that climate change is a liberal hoax. The Trump administration has eased many of the restrictions put in place by the Obama administration to reduce greenhouse gas. Conservatives are much more likely to consider the coronavirus a hoax and consider rules to wear a mask a violation of their civil rights. They march and demonstrate to protests the tyranny of having to wear a mask.<P>
Liberals are not likely to care about the Trump pee story. If it is true, it does not make that much difference, because much worse things about Donald Trump are already well known. <P>
Finally we come to the conclusion that conspiracy theories are in fact a right-wing phenomenon.
Here is what the authors of The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited: An Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking have to say:<P>
“It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left‐right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States em-brace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophi-cal, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in Amer-ican Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults we investigated the relation-ship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspira-torial thinking in general.<P>
“Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general. Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to en-gage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals. The relationship between ideology and con-spiratorial thinking was mediated by a strong distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation, both of which were higher among conservatives, consistent with Hofstadter's account of the paranoid style in American politics.<P>
“Let us now abstract the basic elements in the paranoid style. The central image is that of a vast and sinister conspiracy, a gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence set in motion to under-mine and destroy a way of life.” (Richard Hofstadter, 1964, p. 29)
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-42113248418611352242020-09-04T05:13:00.008-07:002020-09-07T08:54:01.032-07:00WHO ARE THE BELIEVERS?
The world is full of problems. As soon as one situation is cleared up, another one or three arise. One way to deal with life’s difficulties is to ascribe them to some sort of a conspiracy. Since most conspiracies are not backed by accurate information, using these theories to explain situations, rather than solving problems, usually create new ones.
<P>
Conspiracy theories fly at us every day. Some people latch onto these “explanations” of everything, while others see right away that these stories too ridiculous to believe. What makes some people accept these tales while others reject them out of hand? Psychological studies have shown that people who are open to accepting conspiracy theories have some things in common.
<P>
Conspiracy followers often have a need to feel unique. They’re likely to be narcissistic, feel alienated and socially isolated. They may feel powerless in relation to the problems they see in the world. Believers may feel that American values are eroding. They look for a scapegoat to blame for the problems. Theorists are suspicious, sometimes to the point of paranoia. They tend to see the world as a dangerous place.
<P>
The big problem of the present time is the coronavirus and its effects. Some people find it difficult to deal with the facts of the issue. If they adopt one of the conspiracy theories relating to it, they feel they have some power over it. If government agencies like the CDC are not telling the truth about the virus, the theory makes the virus seem less threatening to them. According to the CDC, over 180,000 Americans have died of the virus. Suppose most of those people died of something else. What if only six percent of those deaths were actually from the virus, and the rest died from other causes. That makes the virus seem less powerful. People who follow that theory can also get a sense of superiority since they know the “real” facts, and they are not taken in like the sheep who believe what they read in the newspapers and see on television news.
<P>
Why would the CDC lie about the numbers? Theorists just ignore questions like that, but they tend to disbelieve any authorities, so the CDC might have its own reasons for exaggerating the number of deaths from the virus. Maybe they need to scare people to get the funding they want from Congress.
<P>
The truth of the 6 percent story is actually a misreading of a CDC report. The report stated that 94 percent if those who died from the coronavirus had some other health condition. That is why the virus is especially dangerous to older people. Most older people already have some kind of health problems like disease of the heart or lungs. Once people with a health issue came down with the virus, it was likely to exacerbate the existing problem and cause their death. In other words, they would not have died if they had not contracted the virus.
<P>
Bill Gates has donated money to research on vaccines to counter the virus. Theorists tend to be skeptical about that too. To them, vaccines are questionable anyway. Further Gates might make a lot of money from the sale of the vaccine. And while they’re at it, theorists promote the idea that vaccines promoted by Gates might contain microchips that will allow “the authorities” to trace the movements of anyone who gets the vaccine.
<P>
Josh Hart, a psychology professor at Union College, stated that both Republicans and Democrats followed certain conspiracy theories. Republicans were more likely to believe that climate change is a hoax, whereas Democrats were more apt to be drawn toward the theory that that in the 2016 presidential campaign the Trump team colluded with the Russians.
<P>
Perhaps Hart’s examples were an attempt to be fair and see similarities in the mindset of both parties. But a quick look at the examples shows that the events are not equivalent at all. For decades scientists have known that greenhouse gases are creating a climate change. The physical evidence of the change is here for everyone to see: the melting icebergs and the increasingly hotter summers. To deny climate change is to deny obvious facts.
<P>
The Trump campaign’s collusions with the Russians is hardly a theory at all. The Mueller report detailed accounts of Russian help to the Trump campaign. More recently the Republican-controlled Senate released an account of even more
<P>
collusion between the campaign and the Russians. One of campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s contacts was a Russian intelligence officer.
As we look at the existing conspiracy theories, we see that they belong mostly to conservatives. We will explore this further in a later post.
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-55747868555284665382020-08-23T06:22:00.004-07:002020-08-23T06:22:56.021-07:00CONSPIRACY THEORIES<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Did you know—<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The “Illuminati” is a group seeking to establish a New
World Order, in which they will control everything. It says so on the back of
the American dollar bill. Novus Ordo Secolorum.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the Illuminati don’t gain control of the world, the
Jews will. You can read about it in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
written early in the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the Jews aren’t trying to seize control of the
world, they are up to other kinds of mischief. They are responsible for the
promotion of Communism. After all, Karl Marx was a Jew. George Soros, who was
14 at the end of World War 11, was a Nazi collaborator. Whenever there is a protest
in the streets, Soros is handing out $100 bills to the protestors. He promotes
Antifa. Such luminaries as Victor Orbon, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Bill O’Reilly,
and Alex Jones have attested to this last statement. Incidentally, the
holocaust is a hoax, designed to promote Jewish interests.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the Jews and the Illuminati don’t seize control of
the world, the Catholics might try. You can read about it on the Berean Beacon,
written in 2000.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Look out for black helicopters. They may be carrying UN
forces seeking to control the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Water condensation trails (contrails) from aircraft
contain chemical and biologic agents under a secret government program.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The assassination of Jack Kennedy was a conspiracy by
the CIA, the Mafia, LBJ, Fidel Castro, or the KGB. The federal government concealed
crucial information to cover up the conspiracy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Global Warming is another hoax invented for
ideological and financial reasons. Donald Trump and Sen. James Inhofe promoted
this explanation for global warming stories.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Deepwater oil rig accident in 2010 was caused by
sabotage by environmentalists. Or maybe it was just a Russian submarine, according
to Rush Limbaugh.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School was
another hoax, aimed to promoted gun control. However according to former KKK
Grand Master David Duke, maybe the Zionists were responsible. Alex Jones suggested
it might have been staged with actors. Rush Limbaugh noted that it might be the
Mayan Calendar that caused Adam Lanza to make the attack.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Autism is caused by vaccinations. This was reported by
a British doctor who published an article about it in Lancet. Later the article
was denounced by Lancet, and the doctor lost his license to practice medicine.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">QAnon promotes several theories: Civil servants (the Deep
State) is in a plot to take control of the government away from elected
officials. Many prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, are Satan
worshiping pedophiles. She was said to be connected to a child pornography ring
in a Washington, DC, restaurant in 2016. In recent month a number of
Republicans have come out supporting the QAnon theories. Marjory Taylor Greene
is one of these. She recently won a primary in Georgia and will probably be
elected to Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Televangelist John Hagee called COVID-19 a dress
rehearsal for the New World Order. Some have called it a Jewish plot to force vaccinations
and sterilization. Or perhaps its was manufactured by the Rockefellers and Bill
Gates with the goal mass of vaccinations to reduce human population. Gates,
whose foundations donated millions to vaccine research, may have wanted to use
the vaccine to plant microchips in people’s bodies. That would allow him to monitor
their movement.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is difficult to understand how any otherwise
intelligent person can fall for these outlandish theories, but a lot of people do.
In later posts we will look at how people come to believe these things, the
psychological difference between believers and skeptics, and how a reader can
test the validity of theories like these.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-42661370475501097902020-08-14T08:32:00.003-07:002020-08-15T09:32:15.800-07:00 TRUTH<p><br /></p><p>According to the Washington Post, after Donald Trump had been in office for three and a half years, he had told 20,000 lies or misleading statements. Twenty thousand! The President of the United States!</p><p>It is hard to believe. It would have been unbelievable before Trump. Never before have we had a President so unfit for office. He is unfit morally, intellectually, psychologically, and temperamentally. He has created irreparable damage to the United States in many ways, much of it through his prevarications. He has destroyed the credibility of his office and of the United States itself. Promises made in the name of the United States under previous administrations have meant nothing to him. The message he has created: The United States is not good for its word.</p><p>His misinformation about the Covid 19 virus has caused the death of tens of thousands of Americans. In his eagerness to reopen institutions that had had been closed to limit people’s exposure to the virus, he encouraged many states, mostly under Republican governors, to reopen prematurely, causing death rates from the virus to shoot up. He has ignored advice from experts, from scientists. He has minimized the effects of Covid 19, calling it little more than a cold. He has said it will be gone in little time. He has called it a hoax. </p><p>While Donald Trump has been the Great Prevaricator of our times, he is not alone in spreading misinformation. Alex Jones spread the message that the shooting of twenty school children in Sandy Hook, CT, was a hoax. Can you imagine how the parents must feel? To lose a child in that terrible event and then have an unprincipled person like Jones tell people that it was a hoax?</p><p>Jones also promoted the false story that Hillary Clinton was involved a child porn ring located in a pizza restaurant in Washington. One man was so convinced on the truth of that story that he went to the restaurant armed with a rifle, determined to free the children from the basement where they were held. There was no basement in the restaurant. Or any children.</p><p>QAnon is another group that promotes false conspiracy stories and accuses prominent people of child pornography. We now have a woman from Georgia, Marjorie Greene, who espouses the QAnon message. She will probably be elected to Congress in November. Anyone who believes Fox News and personalities like Rush Limbaugh does so at their peril. Misinformation is spread freely through the social networks, and gullible people believe these propagators of falsehood. Some people believe that social networks are reliable sources of news.</p><p>There have always been liars of course. The difference is that today liars can spread their poison on the internet, and gullible people are taken in by the falsehoods. Then they spread the false stories through the social media. It is difficult sometimes to know what to believe. </p><p>The purpose of free education is to enable people to make wise choices in electing candidates to public office. If people are fed disinformation, they will elect candidates like Donald Trump. Clearly something must be done to limit the dissemination of lies about public events. We cannot afford the election of another candidate as woefully unfit for office as Donald Trump.</p><p>Something must be done. We can’t rely on the government to do it. An administration like the present one cannot be allowed to declare what is fake news and what is not. The social media cannot be trusted to do it. Mark Zuckerberg refused to remove Holocaust denial statements from Face Book, saying it was a matter of opinion. Of course it is not a matter of opinion. The Holocaust was a fact. To deny that it existed is a lie.</p><p>The answer is in education. Teaching people to think and to evaluate information is as important as the three Rs. Two professors at the University of Washington have a class that does just that. The name of the class is Calling Bullshit<a href=" https://www.callingbullshit.org/index.html "> https://www.callingbullshit.org/index.html </a>. The course teaches students how to evaluate data and check sources. Even though this is a college course, it has been taught on the secondary level as well.</p><p>As the course description says, the world is awash in bullshit. People are posting misinformation online about the coronavirus. They are denying climate change. They are electing people like Marjorie Greene and Donald Trump. We must educate everyone on how to detect bullshit. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-72028758079286987442020-07-19T08:44:00.001-07:002020-07-19T08:44:12.786-07:00Politics and the Evangelicals<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A couple of years ago I saw a Facebook post placed by an
Evangelical I know. The post had side-by-side pictures of Bernie Sanders and
Donald Trump. Sanders was being arrested by the police. Trump was wearing the
uniform of the prep school that he attended, New York Military Academy. The
intended message, I assume, was that Sanders had been a trouble maker for some
time, while Trump was prepared to serve. I got a different message from the two
pictures. Bernie Sanders had long been willing to fight for what he believed in.
Trump’s uniform reminded me that he had never actually served in the military,
and he avoided serving Vietnam because of a dubious case of bone spurs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I can’t help but wonder why Evangelicals would support Trump.
We think of Christians as law-abiding, moral citizens who generally follow the
rules of society. Trump, on the other hand, seems one of the least moral public
figures in recent memory. Of course some of Trump’s policies are deeply in line
with The Evangelical political goals. He has appointed conservative judges to
the Supreme Court as well as to lower courts. Perhaps the courts will one day
declare abortion illegal again. Are these people willing to put up with the
President’s cruelties, his crudeness, his incompetence, his immorality in order
to accomplish their agenda? I may be naïve, but I don’t think the typical
American Christian is that cynical. Some of the Republican politicians, such as
Mitch McConnel, however, are just that cynical. A lot of them, I believe, do
not personally like or approve of Mr. Trump, but they support him so they can
get their agenda passed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Evangelicals hold Trump to be a sinner, as is
everybody. The only way to overcome our sinful nature is to accept the help of
Jesus. In June, after the police and used tear gas to clear peaceful
demonstrators from the area in front of the White House, Trump marched to that
spot, holding a Bible. I don’t think many people were fooled by this gesture.
Some people suggested that instead of holding up a Bible, the President should
read it and follow it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A recent study showed that 56 percent of Evangelicals
were Republicans, with only 28 percent Democrats. Is it just a coincidence that
these people are both Evangelical and Republican? I don’t think so. I believer
there is some connection, but I don’t know what it is. I would be glad to hear
any explanation that anyone might have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-46047708055084181712020-07-11T08:03:00.000-07:002020-07-11T08:03:46.667-07:00IN ADAM’S FALL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In Adam’s Fall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We Sinned All<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These are the words that begin the New England Primer,
written in the late 17<sup>th</sup> century. This is the book that taught
children their ABCs. It is at the same time a statement about human nature. We
were all born in sin, and sinfulness is our natural state. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We can find a lot in our own experience to support that
view of humanity. We don’t need to reach very far to the great evil doers of
history, the Hitlers and the Stalins. We can find examples in our own lives. Even
the best of us sometimes fail to live up to our own ideals. We have all done
things that we knew were wrong, wrong by our own standards. We knew this even
as we committed these wrongful acts, yet we went ahead and committed these
sins. All of us have indulged in at least some of the Seven Deadly Sins. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Did those old New England Puritans have something? Is
human nature depraved to the core? Are we at best, at least some of us, kept to
the relatively straight and narrow because of the strictures of society? Do we
obey the rules of society mainly because we fear the punishment of disobeying?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Trailing Clouds of Glory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While human imperfection is undeniable, not everyone believes
that we born in sin, that our very nature is sinful. The English poet William
Wordsworth believed that each of us had an existence before our birth. He wrote
about this belief in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our birth is but a sleep
and a forgetting:<br />
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,<br />
Hath had elsewhere its setting,<br />
And cometh from afar:<br />
Not in entire forgetfulness,<br />
And not in utter nakedness,<br />
But trailing clouds of glory do we come<br />
From God, who is our home:<br />
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In this view we are not born in sin. On the contrary, we
are born trailing clouds of glory, from God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If we are not born in sin, how does one account for our
many failures as human beings? How do you explain the difference between our
lofty aims and our ineffective accomplishments? Where do those clouds of glory
go? How does the innocent child become a despot, a murderer, an egomaniac? What
has corrupted this child?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>According
to the Romantic poets like Wordsworth, society is the corrupter. Society with
its artificial rules takes the child molds him into something that is unnatural.
The further we get away from nature, the more imperfect we become. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These
two views of human nature mark the fundamental difference between the political
views of conservatives and liberals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
no longer use things like The New England Primer to teach young children that
we are born in sin. How, then, do people acquire a sense of the quality of
human nature? How do they decide whether people are fundamental good or
basically bad? We derive these opinions inductively from our experiences. We
all have had experiences where other people treated us badly. We have also
witnessed many acts of goodness from our fellow human beings. The way we encounter
these actions determine the way they shape our outlook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our
opinions on human nature are not derived as conclusions based on logical
considerations. Rather they are attitudes that we are barely aware of having
considered, but they are attitudes that influence our thinking most of the
things we do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Few,
if any, people think of themselves as evil. Or their close family members or
best friends. If the people they know best seem like decent human beings, how
can they think of the vast majority of people as being fundamentally bad? Most
people follow most of the rules most of the time. But we weren’t born following
the rules. In so many ways society teaches us the rules. In effect it civilizes
us. We learn the Golden Rule. We learn the ways we are dependent upon one another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
learn that if we apply ourselves in school as children, we will be able to get
into college and learn a career that will help us succeed as adults. These
opportunities are available to everyone. Of course we can’t deny that opportunities
are more readily available to some than to others, but we can all think of
members of minorities who have made great successes of their lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
is virtually impossible for someone who violates too many of the rules to
succeed. If a young woman has several children, all by different fathers, she
is going to be unable to be a fully functioning member of society. If a young
man drops out of school before graduating and joins a gang rather than take a
minimum wage job, he is unlikely to ever hold a “good” job. While people like
these clearly do not have the opportunities that most of us have, they do have
some opportunities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
may not be born in sin, but we are born as little narcissists. As we grow, we have
a responsibility take advantage of whatever opportunities are available to us
and allow society to civilize us. That is the bad that some see as infecting large
numbers of humanity. It’s not that that we are born in sin. The bad is the
failure of some people, not just members of minorities, to make the effort
required to become functioning, productive members of society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
some people are too lazy to follow the rules and take care of themselves, the
conservative asks, why should I donate some of my hard-earned money through taxes
to take care of such people?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some
people have a more sanguine view of human nature. Most people, they believe,
are basically good. Obviously there are some bad actors among us, some truly
vile human beings. If we are born fundamentally good, how do so many of us turn
out to be less than sterling characters?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Conservatives
may feel that we need society to civilize us and make us conform to appropriate
patterns of behavior. Liberals, on the other hand, may feel that society itself
is the culprit. Society might corrupt the innocent soul and force it to be an
unthinking conformist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Two
iconic books, both published in the 1950s, illustrate these two views of human
nature. In <i>Lord of the Flies </i>a group of English schoolboys are stranded on
a desert island. Without the guidance of adults to civilize them, the boys
descend into savagery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
<i>Catcher in the Rye</i>, the main character, Holden Caulfield, is not sure
what the phrase “coming through the rye” means. He envisions innocent children
playing in a field, and someone is there, a catcher in the rye, to catch them
if they fall off. Playing in the field is innocence. Falling off is losing that
innocence, becoming phony, like most adults in Holden’s view. Adults, society
destroy the innocence that we are born with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
is more to this question than the view of humanity of liberals and
conservatives. For example, one wonders why so many evangelical Christians embrace
a man as morally deficient as Donald Trump. We also wonder why Republicans are
more likely to ignored the science in issues like climate change and the
coronavirus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will look at these
questions in later writings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1841208578943134598.post-59506260706728079162020-07-05T04:54:00.003-07:002020-07-05T04:57:01.367-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ford-announces-deal-with-tomtom-for-next-generation-predictive-traffic-system/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=27154245011674150332956770248190&mid=12911078&cid=1394137601">traffic prediction</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/self-driving-cars-will-buyers-come-if-you-just-build-them-maybe/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=27154245011674150332956770248190&mid=12911078&cid=1394137601">will people buy self-driving cars? </a></div>
grammaticus1http://www.blogger.com/profile/17158423136738349824noreply@blogger.com0