|
It's like when you have, say, 10,000 witnesses to, say, a basketball game in which one team (team B) is the receiver of a majority of the penalties. During and afterwards, all the sports reporters and writers, the wealthy team owner (of the preferred team, team A), interviews with the officials and referees all insist that not only was the one team (team B) not given bad calls, but that there was actually pressure to overlook their misbehavior and condone their infractions of the rules. Replays of the game, excluding all the most obvious wrong/false calls are analyzed by respected sports experts who declare that the preferred team (team A), a highly respected team and coach with a long and wonderful, noble and honest history, was the one who got all the bad calls and make a big deal of several missed calls that could have gone against the abused team (team B), so making the claim that instead it was the preferred team that had a grievance... in the interest of being 'fair and balanced', they included an expert for the questionable team (team B), so they included one guy--an overweight, short, poorly-dressed, fellow with acne, long-greasy hair, inch-thick eyeglasses and a lazy eye, a speech impediment and mentally challenged--a guy they picked up off the street when he answered that yes, he had indeed heard the name of the unlucky team and yes, he did know what a basketball was; thus it was that the team of whiners (reported to be sore losers)(team B) was defended occasionally when he was asked a loaded question--and whatever his remarks, he was thouroughly ridiculed and his answer taken apart by domineering, well-known/famous sports pundits (who, for each of these questions, had a long list of answers, well researched and prepared in advance by a team of sports debaters and speech writers). Every major (and minor) Television and Radio Networks and most Newspapers and Magazines all came out in favor of the argument that the noble team (team A) had been badly abused and that it was intolerable that the whiney team (team B) should be allowed to benefit from such crooked calls--which the referees themselves freely admit they'd acted badly favoring those losers (team B). Obviously, though, when asked... anyone could tell you that by the very fact that those losers (team B) were being given so much coverage, that so much time and resource had been expended to review the game since they complained (how dare they)--obviously there was a massive bias in the media against the good team (team A) and giving credence to those "losers" (team B). If there wasn't such an in-built bias, the story would've been ignored! As it was, the coverage naturally--and rightly--and inevitably showed that the dishonest team (team B) had not only not been treated unfairly, but indeed the true sportsman's team (team A) had been teated badly. Thus it was that tens of thousands of people wrote in to the networks and to their Congressmen demanding that the sorry team (team B) be banned from the sport and that the media had better clean up it's act--or else! Such media coverage of losers won't be tolerated again. The media then held a new round of expose's and investigative reporting and programs in which they pretended to be chastised and repentent of their admitted bias in favor of the unworthy team. They said "we've learned our lesson, we will strive to be more fair and balanced in favor of the truth in the future...", all the while with their fingers crossed.
The truth was, team B had been maliciously abused by the game officials. The media clearly never cared about either team B or fair play; the story was just too tittilating and good for ratings--indeed, the media was blatantly biased in favor of--it's own profits and actually against team B, while admitting both disingenuously and falsely to having acted with a team B bias. See, it's tricky. The media did have a bias--but what was it? The public thought it was biased in favor of team B for the fact it gave such coverage to them. Of course, the coverage provided was biased against team B. Even so, the media then admitted and repented it's pro team B bias (thus assuaging the public's rage against their supposed pro team B bias). In our case, team B is any Democrat, Liberal or Progressive person/politician, policy or position/opinion. Team A is any Republican/Conservative/Religious-Right/Right-Wing or Neocon equivalent. Plainly a bias exists against Liberals, but it's dressed up as "fair and balanced" which to the twisted minds of Repubo-Conservatoids means the hated "Liberal Bias". A bias to which the media penitently, though falsely, admits.
Proving it isn't as easy; though anyone with real awareness, perceptiveness and sense of balance cannot help but conclude the truth that there is an anti-Liberal bias in the media. Still, there are millions of 'people' who claim equal skill and objectivity who insist the opposite is true. Plus, they are the type who won't listen to any sincere review of the evidence. Worse, they're far more aggressive, vocal, noisy and driven--just type the words "Conservative OR Liberal Media Bias" into a search engine and you'll see there are thousands of extensive websites devoted to exposing/documenting/thwarting "Liberal Bias". Of course, there are a number of good sites covering Conservative Bias--and their facts and anaylsis are nearly always far more objective and honest--alas. Alas, the Republo side also has no problem bending and twisting facts beyond recognition and reporting them as accurate, honest, objective and unbiased. When one constrains themselves to accurate and honest facts without adulteration, the arguments are less... less "sensational". In fact, while the incidence of Conservative/Republican Bias are all but innumerable, since they aren't confined to reality or truth, the potential numbers of incidents of "Liberal Bias" with which they can counter literally is innumerable; infinite is the proper word. Stupidity** and dishonesty, therefore, on the basis of sheer volume "wins". The truth, however, is that because it exists; no one wins.
**In an intersting contradiction, Republicans provide us with a conundrum... For truly, many of them are absolute masters of taking non-evidence and irrelevant facts and creatively producing a fiction that's either considerably convincing or at least remarkably difficult to dismiss or rebut. That is, they show an almost amazing degree of cleverness while in reality they are actually quite stupid. Stupid but clever... Ignorant but creative. Smart but dumb. It's almost tiresome just thinking about it. Most of the time, if one is simply well informed on an issue, the weakness of their arguments is self-evident in that they simply don't conform to the facts in some way, some usually clever way (some ommission, exaggeration, falsehood, misdirection, inappropriate conflation etc). Alas, we waste so much energy attempting to produce an intelligent, rational rebuttal to garbage arguments that we're the real losers--all the moreso when you consider the fact that they simply won't even listen to our meaningful analyses.
Make no mistake though, Democrats/Liberals/Progressives also resort to exaggerations, omissions and various improper arguments; it's just a matter of frequency and scale. It's just much less common and almost always to a significantly less egregious/dishonest or fantastic way. Our bad, but to one or more degrees of magnitudeless than theirs. Of course, that's my very own biased (though effort has been expended to be as objective as possible without actually performing research or experimentation) opinion...
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
