If You Have To Lie…
Bloggers aren’t journalists, although many give themselves affectations in that direction. Their work is generally not peer reviewed, fact-checked and edited before publication; they are not accountable to an employer or a board; they suffer no consequences when they’re wrong. But by and large, most political bloggers seem to want to base their arguments, and hopefully their beliefs, on fact.
Which is why bloggers who knowingly and deliberately lie, by omission or mistatement, are such a puzzle.
Case the First: SUZANNE carried a story a couple of months ago about a Poor Christian Gent in the maritimes who went to a meeting of Christian leaders and was brutally removed by the police, just because he wanted to talk to them about his concerns on abortion. Tragic, really.
Except that if you followed the link she provided, it became obvious she had omitted a few salient details:
- the meeting the Poor Christian Gent had disrupted was a press conference to announce an anti poverty initiative, and nothing to do with abortion;
- the Poor Christian Gent had provided the Christian leaders with written notice of his intention to disrupt the meeting unless they let him speak at their press conference;These facts were known to SUZANNE – they were described in detail on the blog from which she pulled the story – but she omitted them. It kinda didn’t fit with the “Poor, Poor Pitiful Us” message. The Poor Christian Gent in question has very slick prolife blog, and milked the story of his “brutal expulsion” for weeks.
(Interestingly, when I pointed all this out to the gentleman in question, with great civility, I was subsequently blocked from further comments).
Case the Second: The Muslim-Hater’s HomePage (otherwise known as the Centre for Vigilant Freedom, where Scenty now posts – a site calling for closer links between neo-Nazis and Muslim-Haters) posted an article about a riot in Amsterdam in a primarily Muslim-immigrant neighbourhood. The article concluded with the usual purse lipped sniff about the lack of condemnation from moderate Muslims.
Except…the original article from which the Haters drew their story concluded with the following paragraph: ‘Responding to the riots, Ahmed Marcouch, Moroccan-born chairman of the Slotervaart city council, said “it is always the same horrible people spoiling things for everyone.”
They omitted that. And when I pointed out that quote in the comments, with great civility, I was subsequently blocked from further comments on the site.
Case The Third: Five Feet of Cancerous Gall Bladder recently headlined an article, in the same great “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” tradition, “Canadian Catholic mag targeted by Human Rights Commission“.
Except…oh, heck, you don’t even have to go offsite to figure out that lie. Someone has filed a complaint against Catholic Insights. The Canadian Human Rights Commission isn’t “targeting” anyone – they’re acting on a complaint. Of course, the cause-du-jour among our leading URQs is the dismantling of the Human Rights Commission, an agency which places inconvenient limits on their ability to encourage us to share the hate – so hey, what’s “accuracy” got to do with it?
(For the sake of rhetorical symmetry, I wish I could report that I had been blocked from Shaidle’s site – I can’t unfortunately, because she doesn’t allow comments at all.)
I used to find this kind of thing genuinely confusing. But the answer, of course, is simple. These folks are simply propagandists. They have no interest in “truth” or “accuracy”. Facts are tools, not the foundation of an argument, to be selectively deployed as raw material for propaganda and ignored when inconvenient.
This explains the genuine incomprehension that SUZANNE and others exhibit when accused of freeping polls, awards, and other attempts to create a manipulated reality. Some of us are actually curious about how Canadians feel about abortion, or what the readers of blogs prefer – but the point, for propagandists, is simply the creation of new lie to further an ideological goal.
Which brings us round to the same old question. How good can your position be if you have to lie to support it?
How good can your position be if you have to lie to support it?
Ask Al Gore.
Some people appear to have an overwhelming need to be persecuted, to have their way of life persecuted, or to be persecuted for their beliefs……. and anything that gets in the way of that is simply not relevant.
It’s OK to fudge, omit the facts, or in some cases, straight up lie, because it’s for a worthy cause, and that’s all that is important.
As I read your post I wondered what country their blogs would be if blogs could be countries, and their authors were the leaders.
The Canadian Sentinel and the Center for Vigilant Freedom would definitely be repressive countries, North Korea, Stalinist Russia, or Mao’s China, come immediately to mind…. dissent is quashed and erased as soon as it is detected and the dissenters simply disappear.
Places like Small Dead Animals and Little Green Footballs are more like the fanatical regimes found in Saudi Arabia or Iran – you can, for the most part, say what you want but do so knowing that the fanatics will swarm you; and as long as the mob is shouting your name instead of theirs that’s OK.
I think I’d put the Big Blue Wave in sort of a Cuba/Castro-ish category…. tourist are welcome, but don’t complain too loudly if you happen to note that something is out of place, you might get asked to go home.
I like that Al Gore line. It sort of proves the whole point of the blog post doesn’t it? It has a sort of child like simplicity. Hey look a monkey smoking a cigar.
“I used to find this kind of thing genuinely confusing. But the answer, of course, is simple. These folks are simply propagandists. They have no interest in “truth” or “accuracy”. Facts are tools, not the foundation of an argument, to be selectively deployed as raw material for propaganda and ignored when inconvenient”
Quite so, but it is a practice not limited solely to right wing nuts.
Stageleft is essentially right in his humorous way.
But one can pick up interesting information in the most unexpected places. i.e. At sda in the post
“This is the saddest and most pathetic thing I have ever heard.”
I found out about Ali Eteraz and reading further I found out about Tarek Fatah and Farzana Hassan’s rebuttal of Mr. Steyn’s thesis tinyurl.com/2fd2sh
And later http://www.reformislam.org was recommended to me.
Perhaps old news to you but very informative for me.
Even in a post that featured some of the worst in right wing rhetoric.
I appreciate Kate’s site for the freedom of expression that she allows. If I commented ” I think we should have the oil industry in Alberta subsidize a national climate change program while exempting Ontario’s coal fired generators and auto industry” I wouldn’t be popular, but it would be nothing at all like having a mob swarm me in Saudi Arabia or Iran.
“I appreciate Kate’s site for the freedom of expression that she allows.”
Certainly allowing freedom of expression is better than cowardly exclusion of opposing points of view, which seems to characterize the propagandists. I myself don’t like Kate’s site at all: I have never had or read a single productive discussion there.
To be honest with you, as much as I disapprove of the process of freeping, it’s time for self-proclaimed “left-wingers” to, frankly, cut the shit and stop whining about it.
I hate to break it to you, but it isn’t as if “left winger’s” haven’t done this before. As a matter of fact, they have. Aside from the Douglas example (Douglas was a great Canadian, but not greater than Terry Fox), even while pro-abortion activists were condemning anti-abortion activists for freeping the “Great Canadian Wishlist”, they themselves were doing it.
As far as freeping goes, I say a pox on both your houses.
[...] If you have to Lie I’ve plugged retired psychology professor Bob Altemeyer’s book, The Authoritarians before. We can’t dialogue when we don’t understand. The book is free, help yourself. Literally. Help yourself. Another excellent resource for current history is Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism [...]
“It’s time for self-proclaimed “left-wingers” to, frankly, cut the shit and stop whining about it.”
Wrong. It’s time to keep whining about it until hopefully everyone realizes what a stupid practice it is, and it becomes unfashionable.
“I hate to break it to you, but it isn’t as if “left winger’s” haven’t done this before.”
Gosh. Gee. REALLY?
Well, see, we don’t. Of course, we’re not “self-proclaimed left-wingers”, so maybe you’re not talking about us.
Site name: Stageleft. Seems like a self-proclamation of “left-wing” political beliefs to me.
How do you expect anyone to believe that “left-wingers” don’t do the same thing, when an actual left-winger was busting his fellow left-wingers just a few years ago?
You know, as I recall, Stephen Harper turned up on the list of worst Canadians, too. Seems to me that it’s entirely likely that some freeping went on there, too.
I’m willing to admit that there is one major difference between the freeping habits of left-wingers and the freeping habits of right-wingers: right-wingers, at least, do it publicly, whereas left-wingers don’t.
Not that there’s really that much difference, because it’s still a distortion of public opinion either way.
I like monkeys.
Monkeys are outstanding.
“How do you expect anyone to believe that “left-wingers” don’t do the same thing.”
I don’t. Not sure what post you’ve been reading. You may be confused about which blog you’re reading.
“Seems like a self-proclamation of “left-wing” political beliefs to me.”
Does it? Thanks for sharing.
So, maybe you, personally, don’t freep. Fair enough. Neither do I.
But are you going to bother trying to explain how it is you want to attribute freeping as some sort of villainy perpetrated by right-wingers alone when this clearly isn’t the case, or are you just going to bury your head in the sand?
Your call.
This is a left wing blog?
I’m looking for the bit you’re misinterpreting as a statement attributing freeping to “right-wingers alone”, and you know, I just can’t seem to find that part.
balbulican
Your post is filed under right/wing nuts.
I assume that there is also a left/wing nuts file.
How would I access that file?
Attempts to shoehorn discussions into the “Oh, YEAH? Well, THEY do it TOO!” channel instead of addressing the point are just so…SDA-esque, don’t you think?
Doug, in future, save yourself time and us boredom, and simply type BUD Reference D-9. Thanks.
the leftwing file was confiscated by the department of hameland security, or didn’t you know.
Her “freedom of expression” is quite subjective. In a thread sometime ago, I addressed a commenter by her publically known name instead of her three initials.
This caused some sort of dispute about the correct way to formally address a person.
I therefore requested to be addressed as “UpMyKilt” in the future on SDA.
I was then banned.
I thought it was quite humorous
How did that whole “life on the lower left side” manage to escape you Patrick – see our political compass
We leave that up to the other guys, personally I can’t stand reading the loonie left and had to quit listening to Air America radio for the same reason, they drive me nuts.
Zorph: — they not only confiscated them but the last we heard the animals were waterboarding the data, soggy data, oh the humanity!! does no one care about the data?
Balb, I get what you’re saying, really, I do.
The truth is an unpleasant thing to have to face. But you know what? I don’t script reality, bub. When you’re willing to address these inconvenient truths, maybe you’ll accrue yourself a little bit of credibility.
Especially since you’re taking examples of your ideological opponents ignoring key, vital details as an opportunity to brand them as liars. Now you’re being presented with just such a key, vital detail, and you’re choosing to ignore it.
But don’t worry: I won’t even say it. Truth be told, I really don’t have to.
“Balb, I get what you’re saying, really, I do.”
Apparently not. But that’s okay. Everyone else seems to.
Merry Christmas stageleft and balbulican (love that name). All the best for the new year.
It has always seemed to me that the primary difference between the right and left is this: the left wants to be loved; the right wants to be feared.
Someone else mentioned the Christian penchant for seeing themselves as martyrs. It’s a long tradition. However, in recent years, at least in free countries such as the US and Canada, this “persecution” is mostly imaginary and looks a great deal like paranoia.
I do not consider myself a leftie or a liberal (or a conservative either), and I often disagree with things set forth here at SL. But I read it often, because I want to know what the more liberal element is thinking. And, I’ve found things here that made me think or re-think ideas. By and large, I’ve quit reading the more rabid right wing blogs, because rational discussion is just not possible there. I suppose it isn’t at the more zealous left wing blogs, too. I just don’t go there.
It’s difficult to discuss rationally what the left and the right want.
The righties I see on the news and around the blogosphere seem to be constantly talking about their morals and their valuesand their religion- and they want to impose those morals, those values, and those religious beliefs on all of us for fear that they will somehow be over run if they don’t, and all the woes and ills that society faces could somehow be addressed if only they were followed.
Are these people representative of conservatism as it has evolved, unfortunately, from my personal experiences, that seems to be the case.
– and that sort of authoritarianism needs to be watched.
PS: You’re right about the zealots – discussion not possible whether they are to the left or right of centre.
ROTFL
Wow. The whole “right-wing ideological villainy” myth again.
I wish I could say I’m shocked.
ROTFL.
Wow. Is that absolutely the ONLY string on your fiddle, Patrick?
I’d say “no more than ineffectual is on yours, Balby,” but then I rememered: oh, yeah…
“A poor thing, Oscar…but for once, I suppose, your own?”
James McNeill Whistler