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By Tom Pain
July 15, 2006 I can still vividly recall the first time I donned a pair of prescription glasses. I was in the fourth grade. The optometrist's office was in a strip shopping center and had large windows across the front, along the sidewalk. I had been in for my testing a few weeks earlier and was now back to be fitted with the glasses that arrived per my order (it took longer in those days). I was flabbergasted when, after the doctor placed the glasses on my nose, I turned towards those windows and could suddenly see the restaurant and buildings across the parking lot and across the street. It seems to me that event has colored my perception of life forever. To have lived those first nine years of my life with no knowledge that it was even possible to see clearly more than 25 or 30 yards, in retrospect, was to have only lived half a life. To have the veil of blurriness lifted to reveal clarity I had never known, made me know that blurry ignorance existed and that it could be affecting many others just as it had me. Perhaps that is why I fight so hard to lift the veil of blurriness from truth in my U-K posts and rebuttals. Obviously, some writers' minds are like my vision prior to corrective lenses - they don't know what they don't know and are convinced that their blurred opinions are accurate. I also believe that other writers have excellent mental vision, but that they prey on those of blurred ignorance, to keep them befogged for their own partisan purposes. A frequent U-K columnist, known for his incoherent attacks on the Bush administration and Geranimals-clad hugging of trees, is an example of the former. His articles are so misguided as to suspect a cloud of fog lies over his keyboard and monitor as he types. A second U-K columnist, equally known for her attacks on Bush, is, I suspect, an example of the latter. She seems too intelligent to not know the truth, and her vicious and inaccurate words seem purposely intended to distort and propagandize in favor of her patron saints, the Clintons. I, personally, understand why people would disagree with Bush. He is not socialist, liberal, or atheist, so those that are would disagree with many of his policies. Many people are strident pacifists; they would not engage in war for any reason and would, thus, not agree with Bush's policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anti-Semitic people would naturally side with Israel's enemies whereas Bush understands that Israel has not been the initial aggressor in its region's strife and supports their self-defense. There are a number of other examples like these, of extreme-ish opinions that disagree with Bush. But there are also less extreme opinions that oppose him. For example, one can support the war on terrorism but just disagree with Bush's strategy and plan. My point is that there are valid reasons to disagree and a reasonable, intelligent person should be able to accurately delineate those reasons. Unfortunately, in every case that comes to my mind, those reasons are subjective, just as his reasons justifying his strategy are subjective. Those opposed believe one way; he believes another. Neither party is absolutely, unequivocally right such that the predicted results of their proposed strategy can be certain to occur. This seeming impasse has a logical and well-proven resolution process - it's called Elections. The People vote and the candidate that wins gets to implement his/her plan (of course, that is a simplistic definition, but my point is made). Why are the losers of those Elections unwilling to abide by the People's decision? I don't mean that they should instantly agree with the winner's philosophy, or that they should even quietly support it. But I do think that they should support it, in essence. We are still one country; we are all Americans and the system has worked. Abide respectfully by the decisions of the winning candidate. But, I believe one can still voice his disapproval - reasonably. It would not be reasonable, for instance, to prevent respectful discourse by screaming your disapproval repeatedly so that no one else can speak. There also comes a time when repeating your disapproval again is unreasonable. If I called you on the phone to tell you of my disapproval, that would not be unreasonable. If I did it again a few months later, it would not be unreasonable. But, if I called you every day for years to repeat the same disapproval, or even multiple times in one day, that would be unreasonable. Unless one has something new to add, repeating the same disapproval over and over becomes an irritant and is unreasonable. I also have a problem when disapproval is not stated truthfully. Instead of stating those reasonable, subjective rationales described above, it appears that today's losers are resorting to lies, distortions, and manipulation. I understand their motives - since the People are rejecting their logical, respectful arguments over and over, and they will get nowhere making them again, they have to change strategies. But the solution is to accept defeat and modify your plan so that you might attract more voters to your side - the solution is not to lie and distort. Democrats refuse to do this. They are carrying forward the same basic political platform that has failed to win the last many elections. Rather than improve that platform, their strategy is to lie about the opposing candidate in the hopes that People will accept the less-desirable Democratic platform, rather than re-elect Republicans and their more desirable platform. Take our U-K columnist, for example. She recently stated: "this Administration used the WMD angle, based entirely on fabrication of facts, Is this lady's vision blurred? Is this lie a case of her ignorance, or is she attempting to distort and manipulate? It is an objective fact that the administration based their justification for war against Iraq on more than just WMDs. It is an objective fact that there was evidence indicating the presence of WMDs in Iraq. It is also true that there was other evidence, subjective evidence, of WMDs in Iraq that turned out to be wrong - but it wasn't fabricated by the administration as she states. Why does the columnist feel the need to lie about this issue? She could have made this point in a truthful manner very easily; here's how it could have read: "this Administration used the WMD angle, based in part on subjective facts that have been proven wrong, as part of its justification for attacking Iraq." And she also distorts, constantly, with vague, bombastic accusations like: "They have lost all credibility for us with our allies and would be allies," and "They have sullied and ruined our reputation around the globe." These statements mean nothing with their lack of specificity and are impossible to refute for that reason also. Her articles are full of vague, unverifiable, accusations like these. Another favorite strategy of hers is to dangle an implication. Here's one from that most recent article: "Bush boldly stated that Iraq was part of the "axis of evil". However, he also added North Korea and Iran to his "axis of evil" without considering the repercussions of such words." Don't keep reading in expectation of learning what those repercussions are, she doesn't say. She just dangles that out there to leave the subconscious implication that those repercussions must be bad. In fact, North Korea and Iran are evil, on that the world's countries and the United Nations agree. What could possibly be any repercussion from stating that truth? I can't think of any. Everything those two countries are doing, they would be doing anyway, whether Bush called them "evil" or not. Needless to say, there are more distortions in her articles that I could document - and I have in the past. My point is that when someone resorts to blurry logic, don't wait for them to visit the optometrist, like this columnist she may see just fine and be intentionally deceiving you. Instead, do as I did back in the fourth grade, visit the optometrist yourself to make sure your vision is accurate. ------------ About the author Tom Pain: Just an American boy with so much common sense, it hurts. Email: thomas.pain@hughes.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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