Believe it or not but most people surrender their free will and decision of every aspect of their lives to one or more of the above. People are running around arguing, passionately, an issue that they themselves know little about, but they are convinced on the issue because someone convinced them with emotion and not with facts. When you are attending a Sunday sermon, you never hear the priest outlining his deductive reasoning steps into why Gays are an abomination or why Darwin was the devil in disguise, but you will hear him say it with emotion.
A person is usually smart, but people are gullible. I have heard people debate a side of an issue that when asked about it, knew little details about the issue itself. A good example is the infamous lady who stood up at a McCain rally and told McCain that she knew Obama was a Muslim, an Arab. What is more shocking is McCain's response "No ma'am he is a good man." McCain's answer aside, why did that woman think that Obama was a secret Arab Muslim? Because she surrendered her free will and decision making to the first pamphlet she read about Obama and it just happens to be one of those pamphlets that had Obama wearing an outfit like the one Bin Laden always wears on TV.
So, if you ask "If I can't trust the Church, the media or Rush Limbaugh, how do I get my information then?" The answer is very simple, use your brain. If you listen to the same story on FOXNEWS and MSNBC, chances are you will hear completely different versions of the story and chances are they are both biased to a disturbing level. But if you accumulate as many facts as possible about the story from those two sources and maybe a few more, you should be able to conclude something that is close to resembling the truth, a lot closer than any news outlet. There are only two rules to follow whilst doing this: your enemy on any issue feels just as justified as you, and chances are he is and wherever there is smoke, there is fire.
so i am supposed to listen to you?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the part with multiple sources, but msnbc is the worst, they kiss obamas ass all the time fox news is not like that.
ReplyDeleteTo the author: Why would you single out Fox News and MSNBC? The implication is that those are the primary news sources that are biased. I suspect this is because their bias is not in alignment with your own. I suggest that essentially *all* TV network news sources have some type of bias. Your options are to not consume any of them, or to consume a mixture of them, such that you can get an inkling of the truth in between the different biases. I take the former tack.
ReplyDeleteTo David: I am not trying to speak for the author, but it doesn't seem he is singling out Fox news and msnbc, it just seems he is giving an example on how different a story could sound by two networks that are opposite. That is why he said get all the facts you can get from those sources AND MORE.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i don't think this to be an easy task or in some instances possible, but i agree with it as an overall approach.