Recently I made a remark on a right-wing wacko site (a site that has nevertheless allowed me to post what they think is my left wing wacko stuff so until that courtesy ceases I will at least give them props for that and try not to disparage them by name.) 
Here was my entire comment:
“Thanks melfamy and James. I actually feed on ignorant attacks, but i appreciate other facts if they are properly sourced. People that express opinions as “facts” are particularly vexing to me, but I enjoy all discourse even the aggressive kind at times.“
This post was an offhand remark to people welcoming me to the light side of the force but was then subsequently hounded for what they felt “properly sourcing meant.” Apparently they felt this remark was a full blown “. . . lengthy lecture about credible sources”
This person then proceeded to call me out on various posts, even ones meant to be humorous or self-deprecating; as if by doing this they could defeat my argument and simultaneously prove their own.
In return they proceeded to do exactly what I was truly railing against, the random spouting of completely unsourced numbers and claims. I guess they figured that if they could disparage my sources I would have to accept theirs. As if! Just because they produced some numbers from somewhere we should accept their “facts” about them. When I questioned them I was told to “do my own research.” I guess they hoped I would start drinking whatever koolaide they’d gotten ahold of and would become truly enlightened.
As I told this person before, which they chose to ignore, even biased outlets are sources. They can be researched and the material proven or disproven. In some cases you will only see articles covered on biased sources, be they Fox News, Huffington post, the Drudge report, CNN, etc. That doesn’t automatically disqualify them as accurate or containing germane information about a given discussion, even if their angle is potentially or even usually biased. Most people have biases and in this media age it’s hard to capture an audience’s attention without catering to those biases.
For instance: I do not doubt that Clinton had an affair with an intern. That story was sourced first among right wing outlets, but nevertheless proved true in this case. The motives for pursuing that investigation were obviously political. The outrage over his cover-up hasn’t stopped many of his detractors from conducting themselves in the same or worse ways before that situation and long after. Just ask Gingrich’s last two wives.
As long as the reporting isn’t fabricated, biases can help ensure no one escapes media scrutiny. Assuming certain classes of people were beyond approach is what lead to such an outrageous Catholic pedophile priest scourge and the travesty that Penn State’s football program has become. Had more people been more questioning of authority, I can’t help but believe those situations would have been caught sooner, properly addressed, or never been.
Incidentally when asked what sources he thinks are credible or refers to he mentioned Glenn Beck. I know, waste of time, right?
A InCredible Source!
James McPherson
July 23, 2012
I see we both of nice photos of Beck on our most recent blog posts.
The gu you’re talking about is like a lot of bloggers, quick to jump on errors by those in the media or elsewhere, insisting that they be properly chastized, despite the fact that they refuse to admit even obvious mistakes of their own–even things as simple as dates and other cases where it becomes clear to every reader that they are either lying or incapable of admitting error. And so they end up looking foolish and hypocritical. Sad, really.
crazycrawfish
July 24, 2012
Beck is so overthetop it’s almost too easy to use him for a cheap laugh. . . for sane people. What’s scary is how many people see him without the tin-foil hat.
fatherkane
July 23, 2012
Reblogged this on The Last Of The Millenniums and commented:
And the lesson? – We need to think for ourselves not believe what we are told.
crazycrawfish
July 23, 2012
Thanks for the reblog! Got some conversations going now.
Richard Bergen
July 23, 2012
It’s all about spin….that is the reason I don’t rely on MSNBC for all my news…I love Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz but I think we all owe it to ourselves to actually go to various outlets…Glenn Beck how ever is not a factual source even if the story turns out to be true…He’s popped way to many pills and wears his magic underwear backwards.
I don’t even bother leaving comments on far right wing wackadoo sites. I don’t even read the comments when I read articles on the National Journal, weekly standard, Pittsburgh tribune review, AEI, Heritage Foundartion etc…No stone tablets, lightning bolts or common sense could help half the people….they don’t want truth they want to envision Liberals has Americans who have bought into Euro-Kenyan Socialism and we want their guns and God.
James McPherson
July 23, 2012
I’m more of a Rachel Maddow fan. Both Matthews and Schultz were strongly anti-Hillary in a very sexist way in 2008; my wife has forgiven Schultz, but they’re both a bit overbearing for my taste. Hillary wasn’t my choice, but I hate it when “my side” relies on the same BS as the other side.
“I don’t even bother leaving comments on far right wing wackadoo sites.”
I do at times, though my wife sometimes wishes I didn’t–especially because, like you, I use my own name and I’m easy to find. One “wackadoo site” a while back devoted several separate profane posts to me, listing the contact info for anyone they thought might be one of my bosses and encouraging folks to get me fired. It failed.
Now I try to disagree mostly on sites where I can tell whom the actual writer is, or where the site seems to have a record of civility. The site crawfish mentions also devoted a couple of posts to me, which–though they were inaccurate–were much less nasty. When things reached their nastiest, the person then was chastized by other regulars and apologized.
The reason I comment has less to do with changing the mind of the writer or regulars (as crawfish noted, that can be fun but other than that is pretty much a waste of time), but because other, more open-minded readers who know less about the subject may read it.
It also forces me to know better what I’m talking about, if I’m not just preaching to the choir–though I do some of that, too.
crazycrawfish
July 23, 2012
Those are the reasons I post and converse on there too. Every once in a while I find a useful nugget in their piles of poo, but their rhetoric and arguments help me understand their psychology better and formulate more targeted responses. This post in fact was taken from most of a response I left there, but thought it would be more appreciated by others of my own kind.
crazycrawfish
July 23, 2012
The fact that they think that way us one of the reasons I like to confront their ignorance head on. I actually can’t afford cable TV and don’t have a functional digital tuner so am usually forced to rely on less window dressing for my news than news programs. I do like me some Daily Show though. I went to the rally to restore sanity and/or fear in DC.
farlefty
August 9, 2012
It was recently my supreme honor to be banned from the Tea Party Blog group Facebook page. I was amazed they would allow me to keep posting there and so I strove to find out how far I could go before they kicked me out. My wordpress post “Me vs. Those People” was the mighty straw laying low that camel.
My experience is that almost every right wing teabaggies is an idiot who believes they’re more clever than any liberal. They think regurgitating talking points or countering demands to see Romney’s tax returns with demand for Obama’s “sealed” school transcripts is comparing apples to apples when it’s actually comparing apples to elephants.
Teabaggies also try to apply a false equivalency to Fox , the Blaze, and Drudge to Huffington Post or thinkprogress.org in terms of bias. What’s also a laugh is that many times when asked for a source of their fiction, they’ll use some unknown blogger using the same specious and unfounded story that they got from ANOTHER unverified source. My feeling is that many of these teabaggies are actually hired by the Republican Party to pretend to be average teabaggies to rouse the uneducated rabble to rally behind the talking points without questioning their truth or logic, both of which teabaggies don’t do very well.