They Read It On the Internet

Its pretty frustrating what some people believe. No scratch that. What a lot of people believe. The other day while walking in the local Wal-Mart, I was approached by a man that I used to work with. He greeted me. We made small talk and after he saw my DFL sweatshirt he told me he was an independent. It was at that point he launched into his "Obama wasnt born in America, and is a socialist," rant. I tried to bring the conversation to a higher level like you know, actual policy debate to no avail. He assured me he does a lot of research, and reads a lot. On the Internet.

Another friend recently posted on his facebook that Pres Obama wanted to freeze the pay of the military in his budget. It was a blatantly false accusation that has been widely proven wrong. I used my trusty Snopes to debunk his claims. I had no idea until my friend pointed out that Snopes has a liberal bias. (this is because they point out 2+2=4 when conservatives say 2+2=5) Sure enough I googled it and several sites told me that Snopes was indeed a left wing shill. Of course it was all very right wing sites that pointed this out, and several of them bloggers that no doubt have really studied this...on the internet.

The right for years has made a cottage industry out of making false accusations and perpetuating lies. They have been masterful to discredit anyone that factually corrects them. A college professor teaches economics or public policy and it doesnt square with conservative ideology, well then naturally Universities are a haven of socialism. Not only that they continue to make fun of anyone holding an advanced degree and continue a war on education at all levels. The media reports stories and conducts journalism that flies in the face of their ideology and naturally the media has a liberal bias. This started decades ago but was brought to a new level with shout radio. With the advent of FAUX "news" they reached even more people. But now they have surpassed their wildest dreams through chain emails on the internet.

The large D Democrat in me says go ahead, keep talking about the Pres. being born in Kenya and socialism and we will kick your ass in 2012. Go ahead nominate Bachman or Palin, we'd love it. But the small d democrat in me is disgusted by all of this. Dont tell me that Obama care is socialism, tell me why you think its a bad idea to insure more people and how creating health insurance buying pools (once a Republican idea until Obama liked it) is a bad idea. As a liberal we are constantly trying to raise the level of debate. We are the policy wonks that want to discuss in depth the economic history of America in relationship to tax rates. We want to talk about the science that over 97% of earth scientists are in agreement over. But we find ourselves only debating with ourselves. The other side doesnt believe in science, history or economics. They know better because after all they read it on the internet.

Paul Schwarz