Steel Cage Fatuity Matches

There was a sad article by Edwin Lyngar on Salon the other week entitled:
I lost my dad to Fox News: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria

My father sincerely believes that science is a political plot, Christians are America’s most persecuted minority and Barack Obama is a full-blown communist. He supports the use of force without question, as long as it’s aimed at foreigners. He thinks liberals are all stupid, ignorant fucks who hate America.
I don’t recall my father being so hostile when I was growing up. He was conservative, to be sure, but conventionally and thoughtfully so. He is a kind and generous man and a good father, but over the past five or 10 years, he’s become so conservative that I can’t even find a label for it.
What has changed? He consumes a daily diet of nothing except Fox News.
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I do not blame or condemn my father for his opinions. If you consumed a daily diet of right-wing fury, erroneously labeled “news,” you could very likely end up in the same place. Again, this is all by design. Let’s call it the Fox News effect. Take sweet, kindly senior citizens and feed them a steady stream of demagoguery and repetition, all wrapped in the laughable slogan of “fair and balanced.”

A friend of mine posted the article's link on Facebook. His comments section was, as usual, interesting:

Commenter 1: Obviously his father is an extreme case, especially since he does not watch anything but Fox and supposedly denies all science. On the other hand, from my experience many liberals can get about as hot and bothered when you challenge a third of what they say, as they would, if, like the old guy, you challenge ALL of it. 



Commenter 2: There is a difference between debating how many carbon parts per million the atmosphere can handle, and the degree to which humankind may be ameliorate climate change, and simply dismissing the whole idea as some kind of hoax dreamed up by radical bolsheviks at the UN to impose the New World Order. To take just one example.

There are arguments to be made about the Second Amendment without telling people that "Obama is coming for your guns," which couldn't be further from the truth.

There is PLENTY to debate when it comes to healthcare policy--is there ever--without simply screaming "socialism!" and cherry picking the data.

Fox feeds the cornered rat.

Everyone committed to something gets "hot and bothered." You bet your ass I get I get "hot and bothered" when people tell me that my gay friends can't get married because God don't like it (a refrain on Fox, incidentally), or push starving-the-poor so that the 1% can become only more insanely and obscenely wealthy. That's my third, for sure. On other issues--say, foreign policy--there's always room for debate, because most of us don't know fuck-all about what's really going down elsewhere (witness the entirely predictable opinionating about Venezualaand and teh Ukraine from both the far right and far left). But there's no inherent virtue in being wishy-washy, either, even when it masquerades as moderation.

Yeah, what commenter two said!

Real discussion and debate on important matters has been replaced with one side throwing flaming, stinking wads of deceit ridden poo. And the other side? How can we counter the shrill, spectacularly misinformed and bunker-minded?

Fox makes it’s fortune on whipping the otherwise unengaged, low info public into a Colosseum/Super Bowl/USAUSAUSA frenzy. It’s how they feed the kitty, make their bones, stack the deck and afford another solid gold toilet seat.

Being even handed, catering to both sides of the aisle doesn’t bring in the dough for that  winter ski chalet in St Moritz, the private Caribbean island or that fleet of mistresses and ex-wives.

So, how do we, the reality based side of the coin respond? Eh, we blog, we vote, some of my strong, smart, brave friends engage -- they attempt real honest-to-bast discussion.

Results are generally not salubrious.

My pal Jean, who posts smart, well sourced, left leaning articles and memes (along with more personal stuff, of course) on her Facebook page, occasionally gets comments from a ‘friend’ which, more often than not, seem like scripts lifted from one of Sean Hannity’s misinformation fests.

When Jean articulately responds, using facts to shoot down whatever nugget of fatuity he’s uttered, he either shifts gears -- throwing out talking points on an entirely different ‘discussion’ -- or he flings absurdities. Like this, in response to the disingenuity of companies who claim Obamacare discriminates against their 'strongly held religious beliefs.'

"What if I have 4 wives? Does my employer have to provide healthcare for all of them? What if he will only hire redheads?"

What Jean would like to say is: 'What if you go back to whatever planet you've been living on, Dave?' She has an amazing way of eliding his bullshit and getting to the meat of the matter though. Does Dave ever allow that Jean could be right or has a valid point? NO, of course not. When it's clear that he has lost yet again, he vanishes back under whatever rock he came from.

I don't have her amazing, even handed debate chops. For me, there’s just no point in engaging with folks like this. They’re not interested in exchanging ideas or learning more about their friends' beliefs. It’s all a steel cage death match with the winner getting....what? 

And yeah, I blame Fox too.