Facts are demonstrable, and don't depend on anyone's world view. Opinions depend on one's views, and have to be supported by facts if they are to have any credibility at all.
Like Enron which had one of their biggest failures, a power plant in India, get it's go ahead through connections with the Clinton administration, which pressured the Indian government to accept the contract. Yet who was blamed when Enron failed? Bush was, and when it came out that Bush did nothing for them, people blamed him for *not* doing something.
What's my point? My point is that in some peoples world views, democrats are not for big business, and republicans are. Therefore, when Enron crash, it couldn't have anything to do with democrats, and must have had something to do with republicans. The people who said one side, were accepted as truth, even though reality was clearly different.
Facts should be demonstrable and objective. But this is politics. There are people here who have been pounded for months, even years, about the facts of specific issues, and to no effect. For example, the Rockefeller report proved conclusively that Bush didn't lie about Iraq. The information at the time, suggested exactly what he said. Nevertheless, try and explain these "facts" to Top Gun, and you might as well be talking to a wall.
Facts didn't stop you in your
Mothersday thread, did it? It fit your world view of what republicans were about, so thus you didn't bother to fact check the article. Right?
Neither the left wing nor the right wing rant radio is about facts, logic, reason, or anything even resembling a rational debate. It is pure hype and drivel, with a few valid points here and there, if you're willing to sort it all out.
It's true that it is opinion based, and logically since that's what most talk shows are. The host is talking about whatever he feels like.
That said, back when I used to listen to Rush, I can remember liberals getting on the show, and I can't even pick one time when they didn't resort to name calling, and blabbering about Rush being fat. Now given that anyone can call in, if there was a rational opposing side to whatever issue was being discussed, then why didn't they present it? Why did they go to lame attacks?
Unfortunately, there are all too many who listen uncritically and swallow whatever implausible and unpalatable pap is thrown to them.
I will agree with that. When I was young, I was a major liberal. Anti-business, pro-gun control, and save the planet, evil CFCs, and on and on. Then I started thinking, which is why I'm no longer liberal. Not sure how that is talk radios fault, given how often the mass media has been wrong about so many things.
Oh please... the list of things blamed on Bush is endless. Lets start with the sub-prime melt down, caused by legislation to increase minority home ownership under Clinton. It sells very well.
Blaming the recession on president elect Obama.
I've never heard that. I have heard that the policies he supports could cause it.
Ranting about how a large ice berg, that broke away from Antarctica due to global warming, is proof that there is no global warming since there still are huge chunks of ice in the ocean.
I have not heard this. Some scientists theorized that the massive ice berg that broke off, could possibly move northward, and just by it's sheer size, cool waters enough to effect global climate. In theory, causing global cooling. Perhaps you heard someone comment on that on the radio, I don't know.
Most of the time when I hear people start whining about talk radio saying false things, it's normally the host simply commenting on what someone else has said. I remember when some CEOs of banks complained about the cost of student loans. Rush commented on it, and people came out of the woodwork to attack him on how student loans are government subsidized and therefore have no cost. Yet Rush was simply saying what the CEO banker guy said.
Not fact, logic, and reason, no, but hype and drivel, swallowed whole by unthinking and uncritical people, who, unfortunately, vote.
Not unlike someone who reads ThinkProgress, and believes republicans would vote against Mothersday.
The point is, there are going to be those people on both sides. I would suggest there are far more false reporting by the mass media, than by a fraction of the population that listens to talk radio.
Hype does sell, doesn't it?
