Free speech protects intentionally false speech. And federal officials have no qualms about stating bald lies and spreading disinformation. School curriculums do alright when they’re dealing with empirical facts, but no-one trusts their version of history and wants every “social studies” textbook to tell THEIR version of the past. Today someone was sharing a link to a “news story” about “Obamacare” forcing everyone to get RIFD chipped and I’m angrier than I ought to be about it* – especially since it seems like people have already brought her attention to the snopes.com repudiation of the false story floating around…
But if ONE person spots that and says “huh, I didn’t know that” or worse yet “I KNEW it!!!” – she’s done a huge disservice to her fellow human and the political process. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Obama. Real reasons. You don’t have to make shit up. And the reasons you dislike him might be things I LIKE and the things I hate you might not realize he’s doing and you might be on board with… but how the HELL are we supposed to make an informed decision with all the obfuscation running around.
And I’m beginning to take the opinion that even unintentional distribution of this SHIT that clogs the system is edging in on malicious. Not checking the sources and believing something you read, all fine and good – hopefully your vote gets counteracted by a couple of people who have bothered to educate themselves. But not checking the sources and sharing something simply because it clicks with your “intuition” (the words of this morning’s offender) or simply because it’s interesting or whatever does HARM. Horrible, lasting harm. At best it makes you look like an idiot. At worst it transmits disinformation into a population that really is believing whatever it hears.
Political reform starts with culling disinformation. We need to do it ourselves because until we can have a better breed of politician in office, we can’t trust them to not commit this sin as well. PLEASE don’t spread bullshit. We’re reaping what we sowing in our political fields and November’s coming fast.
*I’m not particularly worried that the U.S. will ever get on board with Americans getting chipped or injected or forced to carry “papers”… I’m more worried about how willing we are to carry GPS positioning devices in our pockets, with all of our identifying information and personal passwords and everything all in one little device that law enforcement and the federal government are tapping for more information more and more every year – i.e. that we’re totally willing and able to PAY for a far more effective tracking device than an RIFD chip is… It also bugs me (no pun intended) that the article that I was reading about how the requests for this information by government and law enforcement has sky-rocketed, but buried somewhere in this rather alarmist article is the information that a “substantial” part of these requests are when someone calls 911 and emergency workers try to locate the caller – which I think is a totally legit and WANTED use of this information – but it’s a more exciting article if it just focuses on the horror of Big Brother tracking innocent citizens…
