For Those Who Fear the Facts

"Nobody uses the word lie anymore,” producer Aaron Sorkin said. “Suddenly, everything is 'a difference of opinion.' I don't believe the truth always lies in the middle. I don't believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of ‘fairness’ is what’s troubling to me.”

If lying about facts were a capital crime in journalism, the halls of Fox News would be festooned with funeral wreaths. Of course, the audience for Fox News doesn't want news, or even facts. They want only to be told that whatever ugly nonsense they and their dim-witted great-grandparents believed is true, and nothing else. Tea Baggers and their kin are accustomed to functioning without facts. When they are confronted by the evidence that they don't have any facts, they get that same look Wile E. Coyote has when he confidently steps off the cliff into thin air.

When those nasty, dangerous verified facts are in play, 21st century Republicans are satisfied just to make a lot of noise in hopes of drowning them out.

It is not facts that the American people lack today. They have them literally in the palm of their hand. It is critical thinking skills.

They’re also steeped in a corporate-dominated, religiously bamboozled culture that ignores both facts AND critical thought anytime they are inconvenient to the bottom line or the prevailing dogma.