The concept of truth and the facts...

[Javaman]

I have been giving this much thought for quite sometime now. I think I have hit upon something so slimy and direct to the heart of the republian or GOP mentality.

It's about the bastardizing of facts.

To quote Homer Simpson, "pffft, you can prove anything with facts."

And that's exactly the concept at issue here.

The republicans know they can't win on facts. Just like a morning fog creeps in and before you know it you can't see a thing, they have little by little influenced the general public into thinking that facts don't matter anymore.

Case after case can be sited over the past 4 years of how they ran roughshod over various kinds of proof that shoot everyone one of their claims down. The interesting thing is, no one cares. Because they fill the newspapers, airwaves and TV programing with their half truths that the facts become a quaint side note as opposed to the real story.

This may sound like old news to some, but the implications of this kind of mentality, influence and propaganda go far beyond anything we can conceive.

It's this slow erosion of peoples need to want to know the facts is what is at stake. People think they want to hear the truth, but the reality is, they don't. They want simple answers, that they can digest over dinner or have that witty come back at the office or talking points or counter points or what ever.

The brainwashing of the public into thinking that the facts don't matter is indeed scary.

[Old Mouse]

1. You have something to think about

Despite what the great George Carlin might tell you, words are powerful concepts in our minds, just as real in how our brain functions as the concepts they represent. So when Bush's repetitive talking points begin changing the meaning of abstract words, like "liberty" and "freedom" that only apply to advanced concepts he is most likely making people susceptible to having their personal version of reality manipulated.

There might even be an exact pattern to it... phrases he uses to stimulate the natural reward mechanism in the brain, those "applaud spots" of jingoistic machismo, appearing close to the reality he wishes to modify.

[AgadorSparticus]

2. i think it is a matter of sinister brainwashing techniques. i think there

is a "science" to this. maybe someone else knows more about it than i do.

[NervousRex]

3. Someone else posted this a few days ago...

It explains some of this issue.

http://www.new-enlightenment.com/brainwash1.htm

[AgadorSparticus]

4. very interesting. thanks for the post.

[Sir Jeffrey]

5. I see this fear of facts in college too...

I have to stay "on message" and regurgitate the story back to the profs or I will drop a letter grade. It is unique (in my experience) to the conservative profs. The libs or independents allow you to express an opinion different from theirs. They encourage it, actually.

I learned the hard way to not express a progressive/liberal point of view in public or face the dreaded "red pen" on my papers/tests. We even had a few students do presentations on the 2004 election last semester, and when they tried to bring up the statistical analyses of the exit polls as indicative of foul play, the prof told them to sit down.

And when I hear shit from a professor that "We found the WMD's in Iraq...they were buried in the sand" in September 2004, I have to sit there and watch the rest of the class nod their heads in agreement.

It makes me sick to my stomach to be unable to point out simple errors of reasoning or thinking. We are, I am afraid, churning out an entire generation of adults who will soak up whatever is fed to them, so long as it doesn't conflict with their worldview (conservative christian, pro-America right or wrong bullshit).