Tags
Alternative Facts, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Facebook, Fact Checkers, Fake News, Google, Inaugural Crowds, Kellyanne Conway, Relativism, Resolutions, Selective News, The Babylon Bee
I’m too lazy to check the archives right now, but I’m sure I’ve said this once before: I resolve to mix in more brief posts in the new year. My blogging hours (sometimes minutes) are limited on a day-to-day basis, so it’s taking too many days to wrap-up posts. My son says I should break them into parts. Maybe, but that won’t reduce the time I spend on a given topic.
Another motive for my resolution: I see so many items I’d like to share here, but I put them off in order to get back to a draft. I have to go where the whiffs of inspiration take me in a given session. But then… I either forget the short items or something else comes along to excite my long-windedness.
So, here is my first “short-form” blog share of 2020, from the Babylon Bee in early 2017:
“Culture In Which All Truth Is Relative Suddenly Concerned About Fake News”
The piece reminded me of when poor Kellyanne Conway was castigated by the Left for using the expression “alternative facts” in reference to attendance at Trump’s inauguration. She’ll be fine, of course, but the photo comparison favored by the Left used an early pre-ceremony photo for Trump in 2017 and a peak-crowd photo for Obama in 2009. The Obama crowd was almost certainly larger than the real Trump crowd, but the whole thing was sort of a big “so what?”, especially given the well known political leanings of the local population.
Both Left and Right have been selectively reporting and distorting news (and editing photos) for a long time, the rise of so-called “fact checkers” notwithstanding. Alternative “facts” indeed! But our leftist friends are constant champions of relativism, often to the point of kookiness, while blissfully unaware that their “truths” and “facts” are severely shaded.
This was supposed to be short! Gah! More fake news! With that, here are some choice quotes from the Bee:
“One Oregon man, who rejects the idea that humanity can even be sure the universe exists in any meaningful sense, was nonetheless disturbed by the idea that websites could publish completely false information, for anyone in the world to read. …
Tech conglomerates such as Facebook and Google have vowed to meet the trend head-on, assuring the public that they are taking bold steps to filter out any news that contradicts the version of truth that they decide is acceptable.”