Monday, January 26, 2009

The media and thinkers are at odds

First we must realize here that Freadom Nation is the perspective of a thinker more so than a politician, economist or whatever you might be thinking. I'm certainly not a mathematician, nor a chemist. And even while my expertise lies in the lungs and the human body, some doctors think my respiratory therapy ideas are quack.

I write, and factuall so, that bronchodilators are only for bronchospasm. But many doctors order it for everything from rickits to just because. It's a simple fact that 90% of the time this medicine is ordered it is not needed. It is due to lack of thinking.

Well, actually, doctors don't think my ideas are quack at all, they simply fail to read anything I write or say. When I tell them about my philosophies, they simply blow me off. And, I imagine, 99.99% of the blogging community does too.

I suppose that's what happens when you think too much, and you analyze, and when you have a belief that facts mean more than, say, a movement. Or, to compare it to the current political situation, the idea of an Obama presidency, for most people, supersedes any philosophical or political views he might hold.

Or, to put in another way, people do not care if Obama is a republican or a democrat, a liberal or a conservative, a socialist or a Muslim. All they care is that he is not Bush. All they care is he is the first black president (I thought Clinton was the first black president??)

Worded another way, most people do not given much thought about the context of what Obama has to offer. They do not care. And that is the exact reason that people like Sean Hannity say 2008 was the year the media died. He says that because while people like Sarah Palin were researched and ridiculed my the media (which is what the media is supposed to do), Obama was asked questions like, "So, how is the family?"

Well, that's all fine and dandy in a free world. But the sole purpose of having a media, the freedom to speak, is to dig deep into topics, find information on political leaders and government, that the political leaders and government officials do not want you to know.

Since Obama stands for everything the media stands for, the media refused to investigate Obama. And I don't think there are many people out there who can refute that claim. It is true. All you need to do is pick up any newspaper article written about Obama in the past couple years and it will be filled with no "media thinking."

Like I said, I am a thinker. What you get on this blog is thinking. And I don't care whether you are a conservative, liberal, republican, democrat, Muslim, libertarian, Morman, Catholic, Peanut Butter Ferry believer, black, white, Mexican-American, illegal alien, or whatever, all people should be treated equal and neutrally in the eyes of the press.

I can have a bias. Each journalist should have a bias. But that bias should not show in the writings outside explicitly politically driven media outlets and editorial articles. When you are telling the news under the guise of unbias, you ought to tell the news fair, balanced and complete.

Which basically means you have to do more than just tell the truth. You have to equally dig into and investigate every character no matter what your beliefs are. And that is exactly why in the past on this blog I think no more highly of Fox News than I do of MSNBC or CNN. The only difference is there is only one Fox (hence the high ratings) and many MSNBCs and CNNs out there. And no one can refute that claim either.

About the only place conservatives have outed the liberals is perhaps in the a.m. radio business, where liberalism has failed to find a voice. But, as a thinker might "assume," the main reason conservatives rule the airways is because liberals rule all the other media outlets (including many local newspapers as my own), and conservative thinkers like myself have no where else to turn.

Mind you that I've also stated many times on this site that no matter what your political view it's good to get your news from more than one source. I think our ancient ancestors came up with that phrase because they knew that no person, no media outlet, no government official, comes without bias.

Yet people who are not thinkers tend to be more willing, able and capable of following a movement that is based on shallow promises (and I'm not just talking about the Obama campaign here either). And are more susceptible to be disappointed in the end.

So this blog is not meant to be a politically driven website. It is meant to be a site that encourages people to think. And to think does not mean you have to put aside opinion. You have to form an opinion. But the greatest way to form an opinion is facts, because facts never lie.

Yet un-thinkers, the one's who are prone to buy into a movement just because, could care less about the facts. People who want to buy into a political belief because it's core goes back to the beginning of man kind are unthinkers.

This is one of the ways our school systems have failed. Instead of having us do multiple choice, they should have more open ended questions that ask: why is this the answer.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? When was the last time you asked all of these questions about many of the things you see before you? When was the last time the media fairly asked all these questions about all the things they believe in?

What is liberalism? What is conservatism? Have big government programs ever worked in the past? Did the Indians really save the Pilgrims, and was this the real reason for the first Thanksgiving? Is the Iraq war really necessary? Are there really terrorists out there intent to kill us? Are Biblical Priests really liars intent on brainwashing? Do taxes really generate more income than tax cuts? Is God necessary? Is Bush really a liar? Is Obama really the best man for the job? Was Bush? Did FDR really end the great depression, or did he prolong it? Did Bush lie about WOMD? Is there really a God? Is capitalism really good? Does capitalism even exist? Are democrats and republicans even necessary? Does the media really care about the truth? Does everything a doctor prescribes needed?

I could go on and on. I think way too many people are devoid of the free thinking spirit that we are all capable of.

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