Telling the truth has taken a backseat to maintaining and attaining power. We are seeing this on all fronts.
Locally,
we just approved taking 4 family's homes to build a fire station that
did not need relocating and will not improve fire response times.
Regionally,
our State Republicans are being branded as politicians deserving
imprisonment for not yielding on an unreasonable state budget.
Nationally,
the President is labeled as insensitive to children for vetoing a bill
that would grant health insurance to "low income children" regardless
of their family's real income level or age. (He is actually in favor of
renewing that SCHIP program, just not expanding it to include 25yr
olds, etc.)
A national talk show host is being vilified on the US Senate floor for saying something that an ABC news show also reported.
Globally,
we are being told that we are causing global warming and must all
reduce CO2 emissions to save the planet, when statistics show that
temperature increases precede CO2 increases not CO2 increases causing
warming. No matter that once our climate was warmer as evidenced by
forests that once ranged further to the north in Canada than they do
now.
What do all these things have in common? The basis for
making these assumptions and accusations are not true. Increasingly
decisions are being made on the basis of emotion--not facts. If some
untruth (we used to call those lies) fits a group's agenda, then the
untruth will be touted to gain maximum shock value.
Al Gore today won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to save the world from an
Inconvenient Truth. Earlier this week, one Great Britain judge ruled that
Al's
movie could be shown to school children , but only IF "accompanied by
teacher guidance notes balancing Gore's 'one-sided views'." That same judge also listed
nine significant errors in the movie. I'm glad that judge dug a little deeper.
I implore you to dig deeper, think things through, and ask yourself who stands to lose and who stands to gain by a claim.
