So an acquaintance of mine from a long ago job in another town emailed me the other day. He is a conservative; that is to say that he is one of “those” conservatives-do-no-wrong types. It gets old, very old.
The pack of lies he was sending round the Internet was one about guess who … Sen. Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Imagine. Now I get it. He does not like her. That’s not correct. He hates her. He believes her to be guilty of “murder, conspiracy, treason, embezzlement, etc. etc. etc.” Fine, fine. I can live with the fact that he hates her; he is not alone.
The thing is, his forwarded email was complete rubbish. My mistake for thinking he would correct his error once I showed him that his forwarded email was a lie according to snopes.com, the urban legend website.
His response was one of the good old I-reject-your-reality-and-substitute-my-own ilk. After all, being caught in a lie is by no means a reason to admit wrong doing. Said he: “If I had perpetuated lies, I would apologize for them. As far as I know, Snopes is not an acronym for God, so what they say is NOT the gospel… .”
And this is what is fundamentally wrong with our culture. The wingnuts of politics are so entrenched in their perverse need to be win, that they refuse to stop and ponder if their own actions are as seedy as their extreme opponents. We do not need the Ann Coulters, Al Sharptons, Rush Limbaughs and Michael Moores of the world to become the mainstream, or for the mainstream to move ever closer to the extremes.
I find it disgusting, as this person was once a public school teacher. Teachers, of all people, should have ethics. Teachers should encourage healthy dialogue. Teachers should be able to take in new information and incorporate it into their scheme (which is educational goobledy-gook for the assimilation of new truth in the face of previously but erroneously held truths). Teachers, above all, should be able to admit when they are wrong and then right the wrong, putting the truth (or what is known as truth at the time) out there.
I’ve debated hot issues with bloggers before. Larry Litle and I have gone round and round before, but never once has either of us been proven to be wrong and then refused to acknowledge our erroneous thoughts. It is easy enough to do, if a person is not so egotistical and narcissistic as to believe that they are never wrong. That explains why I respect Larry and not this other person (who, to my knowledge, is not a blogger).
The pack of lies he was sending round the Internet was one about guess who … Sen. Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Imagine. Now I get it. He does not like her. That’s not correct. He hates her. He believes her to be guilty of “murder, conspiracy, treason, embezzlement, etc. etc. etc.” Fine, fine. I can live with the fact that he hates her; he is not alone.
The thing is, his forwarded email was complete rubbish. My mistake for thinking he would correct his error once I showed him that his forwarded email was a lie according to snopes.com, the urban legend website.
His response was one of the good old I-reject-your-reality-and-substitute-my-own ilk. After all, being caught in a lie is by no means a reason to admit wrong doing. Said he: “If I had perpetuated lies, I would apologize for them. As far as I know, Snopes is not an acronym for God, so what they say is NOT the gospel… .”
And this is what is fundamentally wrong with our culture. The wingnuts of politics are so entrenched in their perverse need to be win, that they refuse to stop and ponder if their own actions are as seedy as their extreme opponents. We do not need the Ann Coulters, Al Sharptons, Rush Limbaughs and Michael Moores of the world to become the mainstream, or for the mainstream to move ever closer to the extremes.
I find it disgusting, as this person was once a public school teacher. Teachers, of all people, should have ethics. Teachers should encourage healthy dialogue. Teachers should be able to take in new information and incorporate it into their scheme (which is educational goobledy-gook for the assimilation of new truth in the face of previously but erroneously held truths). Teachers, above all, should be able to admit when they are wrong and then right the wrong, putting the truth (or what is known as truth at the time) out there.
I’ve debated hot issues with bloggers before. Larry Litle and I have gone round and round before, but never once has either of us been proven to be wrong and then refused to acknowledge our erroneous thoughts. It is easy enough to do, if a person is not so egotistical and narcissistic as to believe that they are never wrong. That explains why I respect Larry and not this other person (who, to my knowledge, is not a blogger).
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3 comments:
Yup. Yup.
Same thing is happening with the global warming argument. Which, isn't an argument, right?
Tho I don't mean to hijack your post...
Thank you Jack. I agree we need to move away from the extremes.
Actually, I was never a teacher. I subbed for a while back in the 90s. Also, the point about which we argued hinged on the interpretation of a single work, as I pointed out to the blogger in questions. I believe that ANYONE, of whatever political persuasion, would take exception to being called a liar out of the gate. I stand by what I said and stand by it now. Your blogger, however, was not interested in veracity, but in ad hom attack in lieu of reasoned discussion.
Oh, well. I've known him for decades and have never known him to do much more than regurgitate his wife's extreme feminist rhetoric. I'm glad he could at least get a blog out of the conversation.
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