People Don't Like Facts

Funny thing! I still believed in the naive presumption that people still could be swayed by facts.

That is until the last 10 years or so.

I remember when facts settled arguments, but that was before any discussion descended down to a shouting match and back before everything was so partisan, back before it was permissible to simply dismiss any facts that didn't bolster your view.

It use to be if we had an argument and either one of us produced authoritive facts, then either on of us could be persuaded to accept those facts. We might produce different facts in countering the other's facts, but we didn't just dismiss those facts out of hand and pretend these facts didn't exist.

I've had a couple of long time friends who broke friendship with me as they did not like to hear facts as it was irritating to them as these facts went against their world view of how they perceived the world. Facts had nothing to do with their view.

But, that's what has happened in America today. Whether it's the moon landing, death panels or whether Obama was born in Hawaii.

Facts don't mean diddly squat in modern America.

If you listen to talk radio or the motor mouths on the cable news networks or even read the letter to the editor section of your daily newspaper, you can hear and see the most outlandish un factual diatribes found anywhere in the world. Yeah, and they
do it with a straight face full well knowing that the typical American has completely lost the critical thinking skills to discern truth from fiction.

The myriad Internet emails that are received and passed along knocking a particular politician are designed by very smart people who have an agenda and they know that the typical person will pass these vicious attack emails without bothering
to check the facts. Yeah, we as a people are alienated from objective truth and divorced from logic. No one bothers to fact check these emails though Snopes.com, Truth or fiction.com or Urbanlegends.about.com.

We simply will not sift out facts that does not validate what we wish to believe or hear no voices that do not echo ourselves.

But, objective reality does not change because a person refuses to accept it. The fact that you refuse to believe there is tiger does not change the fact that there is a tiger and you shouldn't have to find out by being eaten.

Yep, we've come a long way from that old TV detective series in the fifties where Sgt. Friday would say "just the facts mam."

Bob