A Little Parable About False Witnessing and Malice from the Slacktavist...

[liz_marcs]

The Slacktavist has a little parable about bearing false witness on his blog today that is really a must-read.

It's also pretty clear just who he's talking about in his parable as he tries to explain the fearful, malicious mindset we're seeing coming from the "Obama is reely a sekrit Muslim!" crowd and Palin's vicious acceptance speech, which seemed to be 50% lies. (Oooops! She lied again again! And again!)

And what really confuses the hell out of me is that even after Palin's been caught in several lies over and over again over the past week, she keeps repeating the same damn lies. It's almost like she thinks people are stupid.

The Slacktivist — reporter, progressive, and evangelical Christian — attempts to explain this mindset to us reality-based peoples in today's blog entry. (It's Part 1 of a two-part series.)

Although I am loathe to support his anti-Heinlein theory that one should never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice, since he's more familiar with the kind of mindset that he's targeting I'll take his word for it that the population of people who fall into this category is a whole lot bigger than I'd like to believe.

In the meantime, I still believe that there are some low-information voters out there who just need a few facts.

So, mon amis, I have a list of sites you should bookmark and read on a regular basis so that when you meet a low-information voter who just might believe that Obama's a supah sekrit Muslim bent on killin' whitey (presumably after he raises whitey's taxes), you'll be properly prepared to set them a-right.

[Oh, and for you GOPers out there, you might want to take advantage of these sites, too. No matter what they tell you, the facts do not have a liberal bias. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.]

Sites you need to bookmark until at least November 5:

• PolitiFact, a graphics-heavy, interesting little site from the St. Petersberg Times. Be sure to read the commentary that comes with each of the ratings, because you'll quickly find that something may be technically true (and thus rated as true) while still being a lie.
  
  
• FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Not flashy, but definitely my fave. So painfully politically neutral that its earnestness rolls off the page.
  
  
• OntheIssues.org, non-partisan guide to the candidates and the issues. Feels a little like it's being held together by chewing gum, spit, and a whole lot of volunteers, but definitely a good way to get a quick snapshot on where all the candidates stand.
  
  
• OpenSecrets.org is where you go when you wanna follow the money in the politics.
  
  
• I'm not a fan of RealClearPolitics because it's got too much opinion and not enough analysis. That said, I'm throwing it out there because it's got a lot of fans.
  
  
• FiveThirtyEight (leans left), Electoral-Vote (leans center-left), Pollster.com (neutral), and Election Projection (leans right) are all excellent sites that help the common voter make sense of polling, the Electoral College, surveys, and how news (and the lack of news) affect polling results from one day to the next. Highly educational whatever your political stripe.
  

---

P.S. — Can someone tell me where the summer went? All I know is that one minute it was June 30, and now it's September 8.

Do you realize that I still owe something like 5 people phone calls from the first week in July that I said I'd call? [Tries not to look at szandara and kurukami and a handful of other LJ-type people who might not want the general public to know they live near me.]

I swear I meant to call. I did.

But, see, I was kidnapped by this army of ducks while kayaking...



This meeting of the Glorious Duck Revolution shall now come to order. Top of the agenda: How do we get stupid humans to feed us more bread?
[Photo taken while kayaking the Charles River on Sunday, July 27, 2008. (Photo by Lizbeth Marcs)]

Comments

[bellatemple]

So, now I'm, like, ridiculously proud that a site sponsored by my near-adopted hometown and home of my alma mater's newspaper is topping your list of fact sites.

*fistpump* You go, St. Pete!

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

She keeps repeating the lies because that's what the Repubs do. I cannot be too cynical today. Lies are shiny and happy and neat. The truth is messy and complicated and tends not to resolve itself into a happy bow.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Ducks are sneaky. Remember that.

My m-i-l constantly sends us nonsense from the urban legend of somone hiding in the backseat of your car so they can kill you to the much more dangerous Obama is an evil Muslim terrorist. I'm hoping she no longer believes the second one, but who knows. I grow weary of stupidity. And it mostly is stupidity, not malice.

More and more people in this country have no interest in facts any more. Not the current President and not half the people I talk to.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

And so it is with out of sheer desperation that I provide the above links...links which are actually entertaining as well educational...lo' these 7 weeks before the election...

Sometimes I think my parents might be slightly odd. I was on the phone with my mom while we were watching Palin's RNC speech. It was at some point during the speech that my mother became convinced that Palin was evil. And she's skated Godwin's law a couple of times since.

I'm pretty sure that Palin's not evil, although it appears she's never met a lie she didn't like and is willing to repeat it over...and over...and over again even after she's been caught out.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

I don't think P&G is a good example of maliciousness over stupidity. I remember when I first heard that rumor. I was intrigued by it. When I repeated it, I always said, "I heard ...." I never stated it definitively as truth. That isn't to say that the people that started the rumor weren't being malicious, of course.

The current political stuff, however, is probably malicious stupidity (idiots that are looking for reasons) or stupid malicious (let's see if these morons will believe this!).

It's the people that "in power" that are being outright malicious when it comes to these "rumors." Naturally, they aren't rumors when they start then, they're just lies.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind, but I copied some of the links and posted them in my journal for people.

Thank you for them, by the way. There's so much information on the net, that it is at times hard to tell what is factual and what is fabricated.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Given what she did as a mayor, I think if she's not actually evil she can a totally ruthless, vindictive bitch. And that's close enough to evil in my book. (Apologies to female dogs.)

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

"By the fruits of their labor ye shall know them," yes? War, death, disenfranchisement, destruction of the Bill of Rights... This is not just stupidity. This is sheer, malicious, intentional evil. And I don't say that about many things or people.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Great ducks. What sort are they?

[kurukami.livejournal.com]

This is why I so very much want to do my get-the-truth-out-on-Palin-in-neat-little-soundbites-fliers project. : )

[kurukami.livejournal.com]

Evil? Maybe, maybe not. Manipulative, Machiavellian, spiteful, and willing to abuse the governmental power she assumes she has? Hell yes.

Oh yeah, and lie about it later to try and cover her tracks. Forgetting that she has much all over her moose-hunting boots and has left a trail that anyone willing to look can see... *eyeroll*

Palin's the Quayle and Agnew of this election cycle, rolled up into one beauty-contest-winning package. *headdesk*

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Do it. You can get linked all over. Try Melissa McEwan at Shakesville and spread it around. Just no sexism.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Gah.

1. Nothing wrong with being a Muslim. I served in Iraq, and saw it my own damned self.

2. Obama's issues got nothing to do with his religion.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Try telling the vast majority of this country there's nothing wrong with being a Muslin. I am disgusted by the cycle of religious intolerance that is becoming more and more evident every day.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

I will say it, and I'll keep on saying it, till I go hoarse and have to write it out. It's what's right. YOu know what? That's all some of us have left.

I have one advantage and I'll use it: been there, done that, read the Koran and all that. Fuck 'em. This is still what's right.OF course, conservatives don't have any shame when it comes to 'supporting the troops'. Unless you support their positions, you're a commie, pinko, liberal, feminazi, hippie, dyke, whatever. Fine with me. It's got to be said, because people like listening to lies.

I keep remembering the faces of the people I met in Iraq. There was the Box Man, the man who sold inlaid boxes. When he was killed, his brother was like a ghost. There was the cynical informer, who nevertheless tried to save us, and was so badly beaten we took him into US custody even though we couldn't recognize him. There were the women who asked me questions about America, and the little girls who asked me about my headscarf. There were the men who spoke to me about their daughters---and their hopes for them.

I lived in North Minneapolis and we had block parties. One of the regular attendees had six daughters. He fled Saddam to insure their education and safety. I used to sit next to one of them on the bus.

I share your disgust. Let's fight it. Don't give up. Don't give up.

[drmercurious.livejournal.com]

Sometimes ya just gotta call a mallard a mallard. She has no care or concern for anyone that does not share her viewpoint 100% and she'll happily do whatever she is allowed to do unto them....and even a few things she /isn't/. If she ain't evil, she'll do until Nick Scratch comes to town.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely right. The truth is the only weapon we have.

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. It clarified my mistaken belief that McCain has cow towed to the Pres et al. on the issue of torture. At least I can rest assured that he's held the line that torture is wrong.

And what's wild is I remember first hearing about the P&G rumor when I was four, at most five years old. I remember being at our neighbors' house and that couple, with whom my parents were good friends, showing my parents this mimeographed sheet with all the vague info, including how to connect the stars to make "666".

In retrospect, I realize now that the response of my parents was the vaguest of vague polite noises one makes when you think an idea is crazy talk, but when you're polite midwesterners you don't tell your friends they are crazy. But at the time, I was observing this and thinking as a four year old will that if C & M said it, it must be true.

And in retrospect of this article, it's like having another piece fall in place, because I have a strong feeling that they were selling Amway, though I don't remember that element of specifically. I doubt C & M knew it was a lie, but I'm guessing they were overly willing to believe it because it proved their company was good.

I also remember it coming up when I was in high school and/or college and thinking "Hey, I remember this from when I was four, the CEO couldn't have told this to Oprah, or even Donahue."

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

I would instead say that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim that isn't also wrong with being a Christian.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Xtians aren't being pulled aside at airport queues, are they? White men have bombed abortion clinics, black churches, gay clubs, etc., etc., for ages and not been labeled terrorists. Timothy McVeigh is not linked up to a vast white wing conspiracy. Muslims are.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. The first two are especially good. I do think that some of the posters on here, however, are not aware that lies come from both sides. Not to say there isn't a lot wrong with Palin (there definitely is,) but be careful of just repeating whatever negative "facts" you hear about her, or you're no better. For example, the fact that she is under investigation for abuse of power does not automatically mean that she did abuse her power.

*sigh* This election will come down for be to the question of which I hate more: socialism, or religious stupidity. Close call.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

In all sincerity, what did she do as mayor that was ruthless and vindictive? If there is something I missed, I'd like to know.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

Investigation != Indictment

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticize Palin, such as her "flip-flop" on earmark spending. You would do your point of view a lot more credit to focus on proven facts like that, than on an ongoing investigation with undetermined conclusions.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

I will not, and cannot, defend the Republican party. However, you clearly haven't looked at some of the links provided if you think lying is a one-party monopoly. Look into it, and you'll find that both parties are a bunch of liars =/

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

How did you reach this conclusion? I'm not saying I disagree, but I am curious as to your methodology.