This guy from my hometown wrote 300 words on the travesty of the Republicans, who, after cutting taxes for the wealthy, plan to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. “We are talking old folk and the disabled who are living on so few bucks they are cutting their prescription pills in half to get through the month.”
He pointed out that we’ve seen this movie before. It’s a rerun from 1981 under Reagan in 1981, and income inequality has ballooned since then. Other advanced countries provide better pensions, nearly complete healthcare “and at a cost half of the inflated American prices.”
I wrote, cheekily, “Sorry, it sounds as though you are using facts. This is painfully obvious to you and me, but I’m having my doubts to convince those who bought the Kool-Aid.” He thought I ought to expand on this somehow, but it’s difficult. The hardly liberal Forbes magazine notes Social Security Does Not Add To The Federal Deficit.
When I watched CBS News Sunday Morning recently and there are flat-earthers trying to launch themselves into space in order to see if there’s REALLY curvature beyond the horizon because it looks flat to them, it pains me. Somewhere along the way, “Question authority”, a mantra of my growing up period, became “Doubt everything.”
As the story notes, they believe the “Moon is only a few miles up. We’ve been lied to on such a massive scale!” Photos of the Earth from space are “Completely and utterly false.” And “The sun is not as far away as we’ve been told, nor is the moon. They’re probably about the same size…”
“In short, Flat Earthers don’t believe much of anything unless they see it for themselves. They believe NASA is just part of a broad conspiracy.”
There was a period when you could have a fruitful debate about the philosophy of government, economic policy, scientific theory, differences in religion, and the like. But I wouldn’t argue with some people, who are non-historic, anti-science. There is just no point.
Worse, because of the “false equivalence” belief that even the most inane theories are somehow equally valid, it adds to the noise on social media.
Beside the on-going and systematic Dumbing Down of America, providing just a thin gruel of knowledge without context or examination of the process that determined it, our culture has also been trained that Feelings are More important than Intelligence. “Trust Your Gut” regardless of the careful analysis. Socially and Politically, emotional satisfaction Trumps Intellectual Facts.