The “Fact Check” is the name given to a type of article now run by most MSM news organizations after all events. What these articles are, in theory, are unbiased journalists examining something like a speech and comparing what was said to the facts. These are particularly catchy articles because of the promise of delivering truth to the reader instead of spin. Basically, the reader “knows” that by reading this article, rather than listening to the speech, the debate or the press conference, they will get both a synopsis of the important points made during the event and an analysis that cuts through the lies and spin and tells them what to really believe.
That’s a pretty powerful promise. . . but it’s a lie.
In reality, these fact check articles are written by leftist journalists with an agenda. They spin and distort what was said and then they label things as true or false to fit their agenda. To back up their assertions, they cite garbage studies or analysis performed by leftist groups as if those things were unbiased and uncontroversially proven true. Sometimes, they even cite directly to organizations like Fact Check as unbiased sources who have researched various claims. Fact Check, however, is left leaning and I can tell you that (1) they almost never accuse a leftist/Democrat of being untruthful and they almost never admit a conservative is being truthful, (2) I have found many examples of lies and distortions within their data, (3) they resolve all policy disputes in favor of the left’s position as being truthful and the conservative position as being merely an unfounded assertion, and (4) their research relies on leftist think tanks or newspapers and is woefully incomplete and biased.
. . . but the public doesn’t know this.
So when they hear “an unbiased research organization has declared this a lie,” they believe it. This is a serious problem in the making. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS!
At first, these fact check articles were only used in debates, where the lies and distortions come fast and furiously. But now I’m seeing them everywhere. They fact check Obama’s speeches and find them almost entirely truthful. They fact check Republican speeches and find them to be packed with lies. Before Christmas, they fact checked a speech by the NRA and tore it apart even though I could actually cite proof to refute the fact check article.
Unfortunately, this is where conservative blindness kicks. Most conservatives will dismiss that as “well, it’s the MSM, we expect that from them so who cares?” The public cares. . . that's the problem.
This is critical. The left, through the MSM, is staking out ground as the arbiters of what is true and what is not, and the public doesn’t have the tools or inclination to know that they are being spun. If we let this go unchallenged, you will find the public being slowly pulled into believing that leftist analysis and spin is truth. Conservatives cannot let that happen.
So how do we fight this? The conservative instinct, as always, will be to point out the bias. But that’s hopeless, that will come across as someone with a bias attacking an unbiased organization because they don’t like their side being exposed. Instead, there is only one way to fight this and that is to destroy of the idea of the “fact check.” To do this, conservatives need to create “unbiased organizations” to watch every single speech, debate or announcement (liberal or conservative) and they need to start running “fact checks” on those. And those fact checks need to be heavily partisan -- partisan that they get mocked by the left. That will get the left to do our work for us by discrediting the idea of the “fact check.” At the same time, conservatives need to start referring to all other fact checks a “liberal” or “leftist” and never admit they are right, even when they are. That is the only way to put the idea of the fact check into such ill repute that the public stops paying attention. If conservatives don’t do this, they can forget winning the info-wars because the left will be in charge of telling people what is true and what is not. This is a problem.
65 comments:
Yep.
In a way, this isn't really new. I remember CBS, for example, running a "reality check" in the middle of the Bush administration...against Republicans, of course, not Democrats. But people have a powerful tendency to respond well to appeals to authority, especially "science" nowadays, and if they hear this sort of thing, they'll think it's the truth.
The simplest solution, to my mind, is to beat the suspicion drum. "Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?"
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The liberal media have fashioned themselves as the only genuine arbiter of truth and it's very difficult to break that hold that they have over the general public who believes whatever they hear. It got Obama elected -- both times.
Absolutely true, and.....
...we are sadly outnumbered and outgunned. Our only recourse is to publish and disseminate as much truth and factual correction as possible on the internet. Everything else is against us. As long as the leftists can warp math and reality, through the school system and the media, we are going to lose the truth war. I have resigned myself to this sad fact.
50% of this country doesn't want to hear about math and reality. They want stuff. As long as Uncle Santa can provide a stocking full-O-freebies every month, they won't listen. The TV says Republicans bad, professor says Republicans evil, Democrats say Conservatives = Nazi. They believe it all. When the EBT cards dry up, Bread goes to $4.00/loaf and Milk goes to $6.00/gal; maybe they'll be ready to accept it. I have my doubts.
I am afraid that it is going to have to crash hard before they wake up. They are not going to listen to the Conservative view, otherwise.
I subscribe to the 'Its the MSM' school of thought. I don't see how a conservative fact checking organization (the one below is the first one that popped up via Google and its apparently been around since at least 2011) makes a difference.
http://conservativefactcheck.com/
If someone gets their news from the MSM and the MSM doesn't cite an organization, for the purposes of that consumer, the organization doesn't exist.
Also, like a lot of conservatives pre-11/6 (its not to hard to find articles talking about how the MSM was dying, conservative media was flourishing and polls indicating that Obama would win were lies) I don't think the MSM is the problem.
With my perfect hindsight, I can see the Romney campaign and the Republican party made some key errors (the Obama campaign was far from flawless, but in a two man race one just needs to beat the other guy).
That being said, conservatives and their campaign ads should lean on conservative fact checking organizations the same way liberals lean on the liberal Factcheck.org. I'm not sure it will change any minds, but it can't hurt.
back in Tennessee, but sick as a dog :(. I actually saw an article on this back before Christmas that showed, just like always, fact check type stories gave "pants on fire" ratings four times as often to Romney/Ryan during the election.
It really isn't anything new in that, like a good attorney, liberal media types have been controlling 1) what is "newsworthy" to begin with, 2) making sure that when the truth is told, like a good closing argument by a lawyer, only that part of the facts which supports their position is mentioned.
The difference is that this particular method is perfect for the "low information" voters who supported the president. New McNuggets with the patina of "objectivity."
i have been saying for years that the right SUCKS at playing this info-war. they assume, wrongly, that people don't care. they assume, wrongly, that people don't take what they are fed and hold it as truth. they assume, wrongly, that the left will eat its own while they take the supposed high road and *then* folks will see.
time to bare some teeth, but i can't see that happening.
Andrew.....Agree with your premise, but not its conclusion. Leftists will NEVER listen to anything conservative, as they look at it all as lies. They do not "appeal to facts" as I've heard conservatives try to explain again and again. For example, 98ZJUSMC states: "When the EBT cards dry up, Bread goes to $4.00/loaf and Milk goes to $6.00/gal; maybe they'll be ready to accept it. I have my doubts." I doubt it also. Here's why...Many Zero voters don't care about the price of anything. The govt pays for it through EBT cards, subsidies etc. So if the price goes up, Zero cries to the MSM that the poor need more money to keep up with inflation and then the repubs cave and increase the amount they receive or else be seen as hating the poor. Look at the recent "cliff" debacle...what happened? The repubs got rolled and certain political cronies were exempted or were added in as recipients of pork to offset any increase.
No amount of "fact checking" will change a leftists perception. The best way to counter this is to fight the battles with the same weapons they use. Every day, single out a Zero crony and show how they are exempt from the pain due to graft, bribes, whatever. It doesn't matter what the facts are. Heck, we should be good enough in political b.s. that we can couch all our phrases in language that never directly accuses, yet insinuates. Why...just like the leftists do!
I know we won't though, and I'm left with watching this kabuki theater with stupid lying repubs being called out by virtuous, honest leftists and then having to see them squirm trying to explain that no, we really don't want to kick babies in the head as their pregnant mothers are lying in the gutter of our making.
No amount of fact checking will change that perception in lefties minds.
Fact check this: Who is thought of as "jack-booted thugs?" Whenever the phrase is used, what image comes to mind of which party?
There.....game, set, match to lefties.
Anthony - Most people get their "fact check" info from Twitter and Facebook...Politfact and even political campaign Twitter feeds are a constant stream of "fact checking". Obama's people did this extremely well and instantaneously. Of course I also sent back tweets disputing the fact with facts.
Andrew is absolutely correct that we need to hit back with facts, and stop whining about how unfair the MSM is. They are, we get it, now we get over it and use it to our advantage.
[BTW, Andrew - are you feeling better?]
Bev, I'm feeling a good deal better, but I'm not quite there yet. Thanks for asking! :)
T-Rav, What's new is that this is now springing up everywhere and in every context. This is fast becoming "the new thing" among journalists because they realize that even the title alone gives them credibility.
And it can't be beat by challenging the validity of the fact checkers because conservatives have no credibility to do that. The only way to defeat it is to make the term meaningless.
LL, The most surefire way to kill something is to make it confusing. Once we are awash in competing fact check organizations each putting out very different versions of what happened, reporters will start mocking the conservative ones and that will be the end of the whole idea because it will expose the whole thing as political in nature.
98ZJUSMC, I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I think conservatives have been their own worse enemies. They complain that the media paints them as weirdo extremists, but its conservatives themselves who make the claim that they are extremists.
As for half the country wanting stuff, I don't agree with that either. I think 40% want stuff. I think the other 10% of that group simply dislike/fear conservatives. That is what I've been discovering in the past few months as I've started talking to TONS of moderates -- most of whom are actually quite conservative in nature. These aren't people who want anything, they really just dislike what conservatives stand for.
On the truth, we do have conservative news outlets that can get the "conservative fact checks" out. The problem is that conservatives haven't adopted the fact check, they just scoff at it... as conservatives often do. We need to recognize the power of this tool and fix it now.
Anthony, I'm not saying create "conservative fact check" organizations, I'm saying conservatives need to create biased fact check organizations that pretend they are unbiased -- just like the left has.
Also, conservatives rarely do the fact check thing. Instead, they scoff at it and they say "well, they're just liberals," which won't sway anyone except conservatives. They need to embrace this tool with gusto to make the left accuse them of playing politics. Once you get groups like SNL mocking conservative fact check organizations, the left will do the work of discrediting the idea for us.
Jed, What's new is the sudden spread of this. The MSM is starting to use this everywhere and simply pointing out that they are biased is the wrong approach.
By the way, this "low information" voter crap is a really bad idea. First, while Rush thinks he's funny, insulting people you need to win over is stupid. Secondly, I hate to break this to people, but what you get from talk radio can hardly be considered high information. It's half truths, conspiratorial, and mole hills as mountains. Do not get me started on that.
Patti, Absolutely true. The right simply does not understand anyone who isn't already with them. They have fundamentally lost touch with average Americans. They don't grasp that just dismissing something is not an effective strategy nor is pointing out bias. They don't grasp that their ideas don't sell themselves. They don't understand that culture matters. They never see new threats until it's too late -- think back to how they scoffed at Carville for saying everything is political. They have no idea how to win arguments or influence people. They need to realize that they are not offering truth to which everyone will wake up, they are offering opinions which need to be sold.
Patriot, This is a different issue than reaching Obama voters, this is about stopping the MSM from developing a tool which will let them convince 60% of the public that they are arbiters of truth. Simply pointing out that the left has cronys won't do anything to stop that. The only way to stop this is to make the tool itself meaningless. That's why we need to create these organizations and then every conservatives needs to start citing to them. The left will respond when Fox news starts relying on them, when talk radio relies on them, when editorialists cite them. They will respond by doing exposes on who these fact checkers are and how you can't rely on them. Then they will try to mock them. At that point, the whole tool dies in political flames.
Bev, Andrew is absolutely correct that we need to hit back with facts, and stop whining about how unfair the MSM is. They are, we get it, now we get over it and use it to our advantage.
Absolutely!!
Unfortunately, it seems to be a conservative trait to dismiss things they don't like, which makes conservatives blind to the rest of America.
P.S. Don't forget that Scott has an article up at the film site. I just forgot to link to it, sorry Scott.
LINK.
once they get this is about marketing and not ideals (pains me to even write that), we will win the info war. until then...
Patti, One of the many problems with conservatives on this issue is that they think they are offering "truth" and all they need to do is say it and wait for everyone to "get it" and then they'll voter for conservatives.
That's so not true.
They are not offering truth, they are offering a worldview... a worldview which isn't natural to people and needs to be learned. Yet, they don't teach it, they don't sell it, and they don't defend it anymore. And then they spend their time blaming everyone but themselves for keeping people from seeing this supposed truth. Conservatives need to wake up to a lot of things.
I'm not so concerned about the fact checkers; they appear to be ushering in their own meaninglessness. When I see articles from The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, and The Economist that are skeptical to critical of fact checkers, I take it that the bloom is off the rose. The degree to which the majority of self-appointed fact checkers lean left appears to be an embarrassment to other liberals. WaPo's Chief Pinocchio Distribution Manager, Glenn Kessler has made a repeated fool of himself. PolitiFact makes it increasingly obvious that it is a partisan political organization by opening branch offices in more and more states. And the MSM news outlets touting their own fact checkers are just cloying for relevance.
None of this abrogates the need for Republicans to sell the conservative worldview, which I would assert is built on truth. Republicans are afraid of salesmanship. They associate it with lying so much that they will mistake the truth for a lie if it sounds too catchy. This is really unfortunate b/c the GOP could build up a lot of trust with the electorate if they found that the catchy pitch that wooed them also turned out to be for real.
tryanmax, Don't underestimate hiccups for failure. Just because various MSM outlets are fighting over who is the real fact checker doesn't mean this is any less dangerous or that it's been discredited. They will come to an accord and they will move forward with it.
As for anything being obviously partisan, think again. You are assuming that people take the time to investigate these organizations. Almost no one does. They just assume that an organization that calls itself unbiased is unbiased unless it shows an obvious bias. And so long as the fact checkers still with neutral sounding language, there will be no reason for people to assume that they are biased. It's the same way people wrongly assume "nonprofit" means "nonpartisan."
Agreed on selling the conservative worldview. Unfortunately, that means a real change in mentality for conservatives, a change that I don't see happening.
As for anything being obviously partisan...
That's precisely my point about Kessler and PolitiFact: their partisanship has become obvious enough that other left-wing outlets are calling it out. The "branch office" bit isn't my observation, but something I picked up from one such article. And while I haven't seen any other fact checkers so specifically picked-on, I'm seeing enough leftist dumping on fact checking in general to think this is a phenomenon with a shelf-life.
Ultimately, I would expect one or two fact check organizations to remain while the rest disappear. As to the fact checkers in the newsrooms, they will fade back into the background. If anything, I'd say their current prominence emphasizes the general distrust of the MSM. It's their way of saying, "See, we still deal in facts!" But it can only work so long.
tryanmax, I wouldn't count on that. I think you're looking at a combination of hiccups in the process, as they refine it, and competition among leftist sources to become "the voice" that everyone turns to. I see nothing to tell me that they are slowing down or that the public is getting skeptical. To the contrary, I'm seeing this expand into other areas, which tells me it it's moving forward.
I guess I'm "conservative" enough that playing it false sounds so cynical and unbecoming. I don't have a problem with truthful dirt-digging, or even mud-slinging, but being untruthful feels like we've capitulated and feels like it could seriously bite us... I do like the idea of yelling truth (vs both right & left) loudly (unbiasedly).
(claiming no bias when biased is what I mean by "untruthful")
rlaWTX, Let me make two points.
1. Most of what conservatives think of as "truth" is not truth, it is an opinion.
2. 90% of what conservatives claim is true about Obama is not, yet that doesn't stop them from screaming it in the woods.
3. There is a HUGE difference between lying and presenting something in its best light. This is the part conservatives don't get. They equate marketing with lying.
Andrew, LOL! You said let me make two point, then you made three!
RE: our earlier convo, I see what you're saying, but at the same time, I see you agreeing with me. The leftists are definitely vying with one another to become "the voice." And the endgame there is just what I said, one or two fact check organizations remain and the rest go away.
Besides, if conservatives try to get into the fact check game, I only expect them to bungle it. For example, by having a blatantly obvious URL like conservativefactcheck.com. *facepalm*
Now, something that is presently lacking in the information arena is the "What you need to know about..." piece. Sure, such articles crop up here and there, but they are kinda rare. If conservatives entered the fact check arena with an organization that puts out that kind of material, framing the facts before they are in dispute, that could really redirect the ship.
Again, these can't be coming from organizations named "The Conservative Fact Makers Assn" or anything like that, but I see that as an idea more feasible coming from the right.
tryanmax, LOL! Yeah, that's the food poisoning counting. ;)
I got a chuckle out of "conservativefactcheck.com" as well. Could you think of a stupider url to use if you want credibility? Probably not.
On our agreement, my concern is this. Once they sort this out and they finally settle on an official fact checker or two, they will be sited religiously by journalists as "truth providers." At that point, it will be too late to combat their reputation as unbiased and conservatives will have lost the war.
What needs to happen is that now, while the whole thing is still being constructed, conservatives need to jump in and destroy the concept. And that can only be done by confusing the entire concept so that the left takes it down. Just screaming bias is meaningless because conservatives have no credibility.
Dismissing this is as shortsighted as the conservatives who dismissed the power of Hollywood in the 1990s.
I guess I just see the endgame a little differently. I think that the liberal media will establish its Ministry of Truth regardless. All that introducing conservative fact checkers will do is create a competing Ministry of Conservative Truth. And, again, I believe this will happen regardless, even if conservatives are late to the game. This landscape is little different than the current one of competing think tanks and publications.
Normally I do agree that conservatives would do well to simply mimic leftist tactics but with actual substance behind them. However, in this case, I think it merely treads water. That's why I proffered the suggestion of "fact framers."
The problem is, once they get this sorted out, it won't be a liberal ministry of truth versus a conservative one, it will be "The Unbiased Ministry of Truth" and some biased conservative upstarts trying to spin the truth.
This is one we cannot win if we wait to fight back until they have the machinery in place because there is no level playing field. Once they establish an arbiter of truth, it doesn't matter how much conservatives scream bias because no one will listen.
Think about AARP as an example. AARP is a hard left organization that is seen by the public as unbiased. Nothing will change that. Yes, conservatives know better, but the public doesn't or doesn't care. So if you now form ConservativeAARP to counter them, how will the public see that? As a desperate attempt by a biased political organization to attack an unbiased one. It will be the same thing here.
But if we jump in now and muddy the waters so much that the public learns it cannot trust articles titled "fact checking", then we can stop this before it reaches that point.
Then it should be called "CommentaramaFacts". If we can't have our own TV station, then at least we can be the leading force from the Unbiased Unvarnished Truth-Tellers Association (UUTTA)...
Bev, If I had the money, I would absolutely fund CommentaramaFacts... or CommentaraTV. :)
P.S.... cough cough... film debate answers... cough cough
We'll may have to agree to disagree. I don't even see the scenario you just painted as a landscape changer. Everyone will believe the Unbiased Ministry of Truth except for everyone who doesn't.
The real issue isn't about countering or dismantling the latest liberal weapon in the war of words. The issue is that conservatives never shoot first. We never attempt to establish the facts until after the distortions are out there. We need to be working in ink instead of correction fluid.
I like the "Ministry of Truth" It amazes me how much of what Orwell predicted in 1984 has, and is coming true. These "fact checkers" are basically the MoT for the official house organs of the leftist party of Big Brother. We already have "Newspeak" (PC vocabulary). Look at closed circuit cameras to watch our every move. How about "thoughtcrimes?" (Hate crimes. The "Inner Party" lives high off the hog, while the "Outer Party" (conservatives) turns on itself to please the MSM. Too many parallels......
Somedays I feel like Joe Bflstk with a dark cloud always hanging over my head.
BTW...Saw The Hobbitt the other night. Looks to be as good as LOTR or even better. Graphics are much better especially Gollum.
tryanmax, Agreeing to disagree? You wouldn't last five minutes on MSNBC. Actually, they probably have electrodes under the seat and would just give you an electric shock until you started screaming obscenities. :)
Agreed about the need to become proactive rather than reactive.
Patriot, It's pretty amazing how much Orwell was able to predict and how much people just accept the things he warned against. But that's the human race for you. :(
I'm one of the few people who didn't think the graphics were very good on Gollum, so I'm happy to hear they've been improved.
so, was Chris Matthews sitting in the "conservative" chair and that's why he was tingly?
rlaWTX, Could be! LOL!
rlaWTX, By the way, let me add to my answer -- I'm not on my game today because of this whole food poisoning thing.
1. If you think you are being fair, then there is NOTHING wrong with claiming to be unbiased.
2. Shading the truth or out right lying has long be a feature of reality on all sides. We do it in war, you do it in sports, you do it in business, and politicians of all stripes do it. It's only when you start talking about how to present our ideology that conservatives suddenly freak out that any attempt to present things in the best possible light or to make the other side look bad is "lying."
3. There is almost no truth in politics, it's all about opinion which depends on a million different assumptions about which people disagree. Conservatives need to learn that (1) they are not tellers of truth, they are tellers of their opinions and (2) there is nothing wrong with attacking the other side even if you agree with them in large part... you get no points in politics for being agreeable.
cough cough... OOPS! cough cough... I'll get them to you before Sunday cough cough...
Oh, and you really should do something about that cough. I think I have it now too! Dang computer viruses!
Wait a minute, are you guys saying I'm not the last person to get the film answers in? I...I don't know what to say! I feel so honored!
Bev, I'll see my eDoc. :)
T-Rav, Nope, not this time. LOL!
This solution is why I despise leftists so much. They have so mucked up everything that it all becomes propagada.
Honestly Andrew there really is only one way to counter this and that is for Conservatives to buy up one to the big three media. Either that or we need several more Fox news channels out there. The left get us through saturation. That is how they can put a Candy Crowley as a debate moderator.
I agree, Indie. Saturation is a big issue. And that goes back to there being several generations where conservatives pooh-poohed the news media, entertainment, music, education, etc. etc. etc. Heck, they're still largely doing it, though Breitbart illustrated the importance of fighting the culture war and a handful of radio folks caught on. I can appreciate what Beck is trying to build even if it's horribly ham-fisted.
Indi, You've hit upon something that frustrates me a lot. Conservatives will not invest in ideology, nor will they help other conservatives. Big Hollywood taught me that when you had all these people talking about the need to support some film or book and then not doing it.
So forget any of these rich conservatives buying something like a network or newspaper, even though they could and should.
AND even if they did by some strange mistake, they would then play this game of "oh, I want to be hands off to be reputable." Give me a break.
tryanmax, They are absolutely still doing it. I hear it all the time. Almost any time a conservative talks about needing to get conservatives to go into academia or the media or Hollywood, you are guaranteed to get flooded with "who care about them?" and "it's hopeless." Those are great traits: shortsightedness, self-pity, and being a quitter.
Heck, I even hold Ayn Rand partially responsible for, even though she has one prominent figure that's a composer in Atlas Shrugged, she very pointedly makes all the rest of her heroes across all her novels various types of industrialists--as though to say, "This is the type of work that matters, nothing else." Then she gives all her heroes caustic personalities, to boot!
Actually, I go back to your thought the other day about conservatives running away from words liberals adopt. Once liberals move into a profession, conservatives treat it like a plague ship.
I cannot tell you how stupid this is either. Law... education... news... films/television... literature. Conservatives ran away from each of these and show nothing but disdain for them today. And these are the professions which control the minds and rules of America.
I'm not trying to lay it all at Ayn's feet, but she is certainly prototypical for the thinking. At least she wrote novels.
Honestly, though, there has been somewhat of an awakening to the issue among conservative ranks. That is, at least it's being talked about. Now maybe in a decade, there will be some action.
The bigger hurdle is that conservatives are just plain awful about helping their own out. To that end, conservatives are mean. All the big conservative names are solo acts, and they seem to prefer it that way.
That is absolute foolishness. For one, it makes them easy targets--it's easy to characterize someone as a lone loony in the woods when that's what they act like. Two, it gives the left loads of hope--they're always just waiting for so-and-so to kick the bucket. Three, it's not subtle, it doesn't blend in--the left slip its message into nearly every song, movie, TV show, etc. while the right is like "the-end-is-nigh guy" screaming on the corner.
If successful conservatives did more to help those of similar ideology beneath them, then it would appear more commonplace. (Or, rightly, as commonplace as it is.) I guess what I'm saying is that conservatism also suffers from individualism taken way too far.
I concur. But keep in mind, most the big names are in it just for commercial purposes, so they don't care about the ideology, they just care about milking the ideology. And in that regard, they are worried about helping the competition -- which is really stupid actually because audiences tend to grow when people work together rather than get pilfered.
But even beyond that, I can give you massive amounts of evidence that every-day, normal conservatives not only will not help their own, but they actively destroy their own. Again, Big Hollywood really exposed that both in the number of people who refused to help out fellow conservatives and even more in the way they held these conservatives to much higher standards than they held liberals. Honestly, if you are a conservative, the worst thing you can do is tell other conservatives that you are.
I don't doubt that at all. It's odd the way conservatives react to other conservatives. On one hand, if you were to release a film "as a conservative" anything less than GwtW meets RotJ will be regarded as crap.
On the other hand, certain projects get a pass b/c they are done by the right people. Heaven help me, I saw An American Carol and it was awful! Also, heaven help me again, I can safely say that Glenn Beck's book, The Overton Window was the fourth worst book I've ever read. (The three that were worse all bear the same title b/c, heaven help me once more, I can't resist the title The Book of Lies. But that's another story.)
At least the film version of Atlas Shrugged was decent, even if one needed to have read the book first to even understand the action. Even so, it was hailed by conservatives as something far better than it actually was. I'll be interested to see the second installment.
I can't imagine Glenn Beck's books are good as anything except parody. The guy is a loon.
I don't think there is any way to counter this strategy. If you counter one fact they will make up(conveniently find?)another. It's like arguing with a crazy man, you never know what he is going to say(or do) next.
But he has the high ground.
It's really going to take a major event to counter this. Much less get our side to work together. Like I said before if 9/11 couldn't do it, I don't know what will.
Max, That's why you don't argue to "win" the debate, you argue to make the debate so meaningless that people tune out. This is a classic strategy.
Think of it this way. One guy screaming "the world will end" will get noticed. Five hundred guys screaming it get ignored. It's the same thing here, the object isn't to become the voice of truth because no one will ever see us as the voice of truth, the object is to make sure there can be no voice of truth. And if we don't fight, then they will establish one.
But those same 5 hundred guys will be believed, if they repeat the "the world will end" enough.
Regardless if they predicted a date, that date was months/years ago.
I do know a method of putting the truth out(regardless of value). But it's a nuclear option.
Sue for it, or bring back the fairness doctrine. But instead of letting the libs run it. Needle them to death on every word(I know you know how to do that, LOL), and on everything they do. If they make a big lib movie/tv show/etc, they have to make a show of the opposite point of view.
We don't believe in such things, they made the rules. So why not use them?
Max, If the 500 all say different things, then no one listens.
I have no problem with the fairness doctrine if conservatives learn to use it properly. They need to see that it's not about fairness, it's about terror.
Yea, but the 500 guys get the same daily talking points e-mail. They are all just smart enough to read it.
Fed funded terror, scaring them all into silence.
Max, That's the point, we inject our own guys among the 500 to stop them from being unified. We drown them in noise. That's the only way to fight something like this.
Yes, fed funded terror... the right needs to learn to use it because the left already does.
You never win an honorable fight with a dishonorable opponent.
When the deck is stacked against you, you improvise. Not unlike a little known and seldom mentioned small rebel army against a superior foe(sarcasm intended). I think it was lead by some guy named George;).
But Max, that's my point!! You cannot fight honorably. That is a conservative fallacy -- the idea that politics is about honor. It never has been except in conservative wet dreams.
You need to fight something like this in the most dishonorable of ways -- the same way you fight a propaganda war. And that means you put out your own fact check articles and you flood the market with heavily biased contradictory information until people decide that the entire concept is worthless and tune it out. You saturate them in bullshit.
I am not at all suggesting some sort of legitimate, "we'll put out the truth and people will believe us." That's foolish. Conservatives just don't have the credibility with the public for that to work.
I understood your point.
The socialist/communist movement in this country began with a dishonorable fight. Most people would not want to face that fact, that there are those who wish to harm us and our way of life.
Fighting is never a clean and honorable business, we have been taking one punch after another. Saying your the better person because you didn't fight is insane. Speaking softly and carrying a big stick doesn't mean jack. There are times you have to use the stick.
I'm just as tired of it as you are, spending a lifetime of being insulted by these people has an effect.
Max, Yep. I agree completely. Anyone who thinks politics can be won with honor is simply wrong.
"This is critical. The left, through the MSM, is staking out ground as the arbiters of what is true and what is not, and the public doesn’t have the tools or inclination to know that they are being spun."
Andrew Price is speaking my language.
I disagree about one thing: Conservatives should not duplicate the duplicity of the left by creating biased sites that pretend to objectivity. We should create conservative sites that report accurately, doing a better job of it than WaPo Fact Checker, PolitiFact and Annenberg Fact Check.
I started a site that aims to fit the bill.
http://www.zebrafactcheck.com/
The battle, as you note, is over the sources of trusted information. The MSM is positioning itself to fill that role, and it has a head start because academia is filled with left-leaners who write journal articles and populate think-tanks.
We win the battle with honor by educating opinion-makers on how to communicate conservatism with solid information and by pointing out the errors from the other side. Most other voters follow the opinion-makers.
Trying to win that game without honor doesn't win the game in the long term.
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