(The Root) -- On my radio show TWiB!we cover myriad topics -- from the problematic to the flat-out absurd to the seriously dangerous. However, because we scour through news stories every day, we've started to notice a frightening pattern. People -- who we're supposed to respect and listen to -- are saying things that are not only questionable but completely misleading.I'm not speaking of really complicated, wonky-type stuff (you know, the type of stuff Christine O'Donnell is into). I'm talking about ideas and concepts that a quick Google search would prove true or false, with a string of experts to back it up. One of my co-hosts, Aaron Rand Freeman, often laments the work we put in to create reasonable, fact-based arguments, yet we aren't getting traction the way people who seem to just talk out of their asses are.
We live in an amazing time. There's so much information at our fingertips -- we could become experts at virtually anything. If you had the time, energy and an Internet connection, you could learn how to dissect a frog, an engine or a political argument. Yet media outlets, pundits and politicians themselves actively promote misrepresentations, half-truths, maliciously framed ideas and outright lies. And there's little consequence. You can say virtually anything when it comes to our political landscape and it's OK -- as long as it doesn't mess with your team's bottom line (*cough* Todd Akin *cough*).
this has been a pet peeve of mine that just makes me further think we are our worse enemies.
we allow IMO through laziness, exceptance of which ever statement flips a switch, doing ourselves and our fellow Americans a enormous disservice.
this is a intentionally induced mindset, the more disenfranchised we feel the less we participate.while the right wing concentrates on their base feeding them the red meat of hate. G W Bush,"you can fool some of the people all of the time, and they are the one's you want to concentrate on". a plan born in the Nixon WH with Roger Ailes of Fox news fame.
For example, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been on the stump and plastering TV ads in battleground states claiming that the president has taken the "work" out of "work for welfare." Fact-checkers and many within the news media have pointed out that this claim is false. It's not just a different framing or opposing viewpoint -- it's an actual lie.
Yet this candidate for the highest office of the land continues to make this argument, and media with an ax to grind with the president co-sign. At Romney-Ryan rallies, audiences boo the president for taking their money and giving it to shiftless, nonworking welfare recipients.
you want a leader who intentionally misleads you, where would they draw a line as to what not to fool "we the people" about?
