How do you preserve history and direct seekers to facts and
rational discussions instead of getting lost and entangled in a
jungle of disinformation and fantasy? How do we educate our
children so that they have the ability to know the difference and
discern truth/fact from fiction?
Yesterday's Morning Edition had an interesting interview with Matt
Miller, author of "The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old
Ways of Thinking" may be a good place to start.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100338745
"Yet it is equally clear that the latest conservative "strategy" ‹
cutting taxes (mostly for the well off ), standing idle while health
costs soar and the ranks of the uninsured swell toward 50 million,
mortgaging our future to nations like China via massive trade
deficits, and deregulating our financial system with explosive
results ‹ has torpedoed our public finances and fueled a pervasive
sense of foreboding."
When I want to find information about medicine, I don't go to a florist,
I read medical journals and talk to doctors. When I want to learn the
rules of soccer, I go to FIFA or USSF for the rule books, and talk to
referees. When I want to learn more about Macintosh computers, I get my
information from Apple and from the computer user groups and Mac users.
It makes sense for me to seek Liberals when I want to learn more about
liberal philosophy and politics, instead of some conservative whose
pretzel logic is so twisted that he has a few people believing that a
self-serving conservative like Scalia, whose thinking has barely made it
out of the 18th century without acknowledging the Age of Enlightenment,
is a liberal. You need to go to the sources of liberal thinking, rather
than believing a cartoonish caricature that's essentially irrelevant.
Contrary to the odd redefinition of Liberal, there are a lot of
similarities with those in the 18th century and the 21st century. Cons
attempt to changed the definition, while actual Liberals have not
changed significantly in their philosophy.
How do intelligent people get tricked so easily? Just because you want
something to be true doesn't make it true. Even though you've been
inundated with fabrications from the likes of Raygun's deputy press
secretary Larry "Say something five times and it becomes true" Speakes
[and Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Heritage Foundation, et al],
you should have learned in school and afterwards to discern the
difference between fact and fiction.
Internet information and news sources range from the absurd to partisan
rants to straight news to deliberate obfuscation and everything in
between. It helps to choose sources carefully, and check their
reputations. Wikipedia is a very good source for information on
computers and electronics, however when you get to politics and history,
those entries are often questionable and can change frequently; same for
lesser know sites. Most important, find information and opinions from
all points of view instead of just one, then parse and compare.
BTW, Ben Franklin wasn't a Puritan although his father was. Franklin
retained some of the Puritan values of hard work, community, education,
but considered himself to be a Deist. As for Jefferson and Madison,
being exemplars of the Enlightenment, of course they were liberal. They
were also complicated and conflicted about their politics, and used
reason to resolve issues; that's what the Enlightenment was all about!
They discovered that blind Tradition is usually the worst reason for
doing anything, and grew from that.
Betty
---
Reality is that which, once you stop
believing in it, doesn't go away.
-- Philip K. Dick
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