Fungible Truth

Here are some more disconnected musings in search of a theme.

Yesterday I signed up to attend a rally next Saturday afternoon, a showing of a live video feed from Bernie Sanders to his supporters across the country.  It is being held in one of my favorite restaurants, just down the road, it is free, and having just watched the Republican "debate" (read: slap-fight) I felt uncommonly motivated to care about the direction of my country.

It seems to me there are lots of problems facing our nation, but a good number of them stem from the concept of "fungible truth."  

The Fairness Doctrine was struck down in 1987 by the Reagan Administration, to intentionally foster the promulgation of viewpoints not favorable to the facts.  As a result, supermarket tabloid mogul Roger Murdoch created Fox News, to carry across his Elvis sightings and two-headed alien babies into broadcast television.  "Entertainment" masquerading as news.  Without the Fairness Doctrine to keep them honest, they are free to spin whatever fictions they want and millions of people, like 23% of the populace, have bought into these headlines as reality.  (To be fair, MSNBC can trend toward single-viewpoint journalism as well, but studies have shown that "liberal" viewers get their news from a number of sources, while "conservatives" use FNC exclusively -- because nobody else tells the same story.)

This has caused a severe schism in the nation, it has lowered the tone of public debate, it has allowed a 21st-Century Hitler to ascend to prominence in the current presidential race.

We have candidates onstage in Charleston "debating" settled issues of science and law.  We have unanimity among the candidates that Obama has weakened the military, and his signature health care initiative is reducing the number of insured.  Candidate after candidate decried Obama's taking unilateral action, "overstepping his mandate," without once mentioning why he had to do so.

These are not viewpoints supportable by facts.  They're strictly Fox News talking points, sold by the Elvis's two-headed alien baby creator.  

Without some governor on the public airwaves, without SOME RESPONSIBILITY for veracity, our country's public debate will never be about the facts and real issues and real problems facing our nation.  The decisions we make must be guided by truth, must be based on an informed electorate, and must be based on a consensus of what the truth of the matter is.

We can no longer afford to live without the Fairness Doctrine.

What's been lost is not only the particular truths in these small matters. What's been lost is a respect for truth, a belief that there is one consensus truth, and that evidence points to one reality we all share and we can discover the truth by proper application of scientific method.

It is all too common today to hear, "Well, that's your opinion" or "I know what I hear / see / feel / know, and scientific proof isn't going to change that." This is a dangerous street.

This belief in fungible truth is also what leads to, I believe, the all-too-commonly repeated meme that CDs sound tinny compared to LPs, that LPs have greater frequency response and dynamic response.

This viewpoint is particularly baffling to me not only because it's dead wrong, but also because it is so easily disprovable. It's like these people don't even respect reality anymore.

NPR this morning interviewed some voters in a Houston cafe, and each one of them were contemplating voting for Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Huckabee, or Santorum based on one belief, and one belief only.

They're scared to death that ISIS is coming for them in their homes, and Obama is going to take away their guns.  

Over and over, security - guns - guns - security.  The interviewer asked why this was such a big issue to them, and they said, "Well, Rush Limbaugh said..."

The security issue, keeping people in fear, terrorizing them, convincing them terrorists are on every street corner has been Fox News' MO since the beginning.  Scared citizens are easy-to-control citizens.

And a substantial portion of the electorate is TERRIFIED.

One lady said she likes Cruz better, but has to admit that Trump has a better chance of beating Hillary in the general.  When asked why beating Hillary is so important, she replied, "Oh gosh, can you imagine if Hiilary got in?  She doesn't know ANYTHING about security and she would work try to complete what Obama started.  We wouldn't have a country left."

Millions of people believe this narrative.  Fox and Limbaugh have made it "the truth" for them.

Even though it's demonstrably false.

When i sputter and fume like this I sound just like my dad.

Patrons of the right-wing media are not interested in learning anything. They just want to hear their prejudices and suppositions supported by someone they can refer to as an authority. The Republican Party has relied on wedge issues and fear as the central point of their campaigns for decades. Honesty is the furthest thing from right-wing politics for both the politicians and their supporters.