All the lies let a lot of people live in an alternate reality that they can’t easily be pulled out of.

It’s bad enough with religion warping the perception of huge populations, but now the media seems to be in the “reality making” business worse than anything I’ve studied. It used to be that a population had to be isolated to be massively influenced by their government or media propaganda, but look at the US today: there exists easy and open access to information for people privileged enough to have a computer, internet, and a bit of time, and there is an entire population that has cut themselves off or restricted themselves to only receive the words of liars.

Top it all off, it seems like it’s so easy for these people to be led away to laa laa land. It seems that you have to have a degree in the humanities and a lot of study of media to stop oneself from being pulled into this reality of lies, as I have to work damn hard to keep family and friends, reasonably intelligent people all, from get caught up in bullshit world. However there are so many lies that even I fail at catching and correcting them all.

It’s also very hard to get people to think critically. Sometimes using a pointed question with loaded logic can pop many lies at once, but it’s taken me years to get just my mother to start asking a few of the right questions for herself instead of just listening to and accepting the sound bites.

To add: I think a lot of what makes the trap of lies so easy to fall prey to is trust. The first thing one does when one becomes a critical thinker is to stop trusting.

It just seems getting people to stop trusting institutions of all sorts, especially media institutions, is the hard and tricky part. It’s plain authoritarianism: people have been trained to give unearned trust to institutions.

Problem is the nature of the “lies” that the rightwingers tell.  Most of the time, they’re either true statements that are slanted so harshly as to sound like the opposite of what they really say, or statements that are just semantically empty but extremely emotional.  Consider the statements:

a.  The Affordable Care Act will fund abortions
b.  The fact that Steve Driehaus supports the ACA means that he supports Federal funding of abortions.

A is simply wrong, and, perhaps legally actionable.  B is simply assumes A as a given; it’s bad logic, but it’s hard to call it a “lie”.

The current crop of “journalists” fall hook, line, and sinker for the “non denial denial”:

“You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking such a thing!”
“That’s ridiculous”
“You’re telling me that you’re objectively pro-Badguy”.
“That would be wrong/illegal/immoral”
“Are you calling me a liar?”

How many times have you heard a journalist say “Was that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’”?

Politicians have to be master of slant/spin; their universe is right out of H. P. Lovecraft, with noneuclidean architecture that no sane mind can comprehend.  In the runup to the Iraq war, for example, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld never once gave a straight answer to a question about how long the war would last, what it would cost, or how many casualties to expect.  They phrased the answers so that everybody *thought* they’d gotten an answer.

So the big problem about suing over “lies” (outside of, you know, the lawyers and all) is to make sure that they really are lies, and not just political slant and nonspeak.

I was getting new tires for my car this morning and while I was sitting in the waiting room, Fox News was on the tv.  I was subjected to this segment.  It was so horribly blatant that I was practically yelling at the tv in the middle of the Toyota dealership waiting room. 

I know that it is Fox and I shouldn’t expect anything even resembling actual journalism from them, but I guess I did expect at least a nod to reality.  I try to avoid them altogether, so I guess I hadn’t realized quite how bad it actually is.  But the number of outright lies the two blondes just casually threw out there was amazing, and the number of people in the waiting room just nodding along to the idea that requiring *insurance companies* to cover birth control will cause *government* spending on healthcare to increase makes any sort of sense at all just floored me.

I was sitting in the waiting room, Fox News was on the tv.

I have asked people to change the channel in these situations.  Never has that request ben refused, nor anyone even complained about the request.

I have a little doohickey that will turn off any television from about 30 feet away. Whenever I’m stuck in a waiting room with a television, I just turn it off without making it clear that I’m the one doing it. Nobody has ever said anything but “Whew!”

When I’m fantasizing nice things as an attempted insomnia cure, I picture Fantasy Barack Obama—you know, the one who campaigned in 2008—stepping forward and saying that lies are a threat to American national security, and that henceforth any media outlet that tells a lie will be cut off for an hour. Second offence, two hours. Etc. It never helps me sleep, but it sure feels good.

James @ 5:

I asked, and so did another woman who was equally infuriated, and the channel did not get changed.  We were told that the overwhelming majority of the customers preferred that channel and so did the management.

I do like felagund’s solution, though.

felagund - where can we get one?
My dealership leaves the remote out for anyone to use.  Whoever grabs it can pretty much decide what is on as no one seems willing to confront other customers.  I mostly go to the “quiet” waiting room and work on my computer so as not to chance Faux or other really horrible tv.

Every time I hear about an anti-choice group lying about something, my reaction is basically, “What, again?”

Someone could make a blog out of nothing but chronicling the falsehoods coming out of the anti-choice movement. It’s gotten to the point where I’m not even interested in arguing with antis anymore because the movement has shown that it doesn’t care about the facts.

Someone could make a blog out of nothing but chronicling the falsehoods coming out of the anti-choice movement.

Not only could someone do that, people do. Amanda writes for one called RH Reality Check.

ks - I’d just take my business elsewhere if that were the case.

People looking for the TV-B-Gone can find it at ThinkGeek. Also Lady Ada has a kit you can buy. It’s more useful if you want to conceal it into something besides a keychain - say, a hat or jacket.

ks—email Toyota corporate. Make it clear that this is an issue both for your use of this dealership and any future automobile purchases. Most dealerships, especially in the current climate, are absolutely paranoid about their customer ratings (ours keeps sending out begging emails asking me to fill out the satisfaction surveys after maintenance). Corporate won’t care about the channel per se, but “refused a reasonable request from two customers for political reasons” will get their attention.

And in general, absolutely. But I disagree with lightning. The lies are so often just flat-out lies and made-up crap. Consider the whole birth certificate thing, the “death panels” lie, the “stimulus didn’t work” lie, the “no global warming” lie, the “birth control pills are a form of abortion” lie, the “obama raised your taxes” lie, not to mention the pretty much continual flow of lies about particular events, like Rep. West’s apology lie.  The relationship of most GOP talking points to the truth is purely coincidental; they’re picked for political impact, not accuracy.

lightning, 3:

Consider the statements:
a.  The Affordable Care Act will fund abortions
b.  The fact that Steve Driehaus supports the ACA means that he supports Federal funding of abortions.
A is simply wrong, and, perhaps legally actionable.  B is simply assumes A as a given; it’s bad logic, but it’s hard to call it a “lie”.

No, it’s actually fairly easy to call it a lie. It’s an empirical statement: it asserts as fact a relationship between a lagislator’s vote and his position on an issue where no such relationship exists. It’s compounded by the fact that he didn’t hold that position either, but on top of that, the basic fact “supporting this law means holding this position” is false. That’s not some semantic thing, it’s fairly straightforward.

There, see? I just called it a lie. Not difficult in the slightest.

Good post, Amanda.  If the guy has to be a misogynist, at least we can disown him when all the facts of the case are forgotten and all we’re left with is conservative crying about a frivolous lawsuit!

R.T.@ #1&2:  Right on.  The “alternate reality” you post about is getting easier and easier to sell, unfortunately, and it has always been easy to sell to the conservative crowd, which has never been all that concerned about facts.

I’m at the point where I don’t even get to discuss policy positions and/or opinions with wingnuts. I have to spend a lot of time and energy correcting their mistaken assumptions / logical flaws & fallacies and replacing their “facts” with actual facts.

It’s exhausting, it eats into the time we should be using to discuss the comparative merits of policy alternatives; and it makes me feel like I’m re-explaining the alphabet to grad students. It also means that the guys that taught me Intro to Logic (in high school) and Epistemiology 101 (in college) will continue receiving birthday and holiday cards from me as long as we’re alive. How I wish those courses were NOT elective and were taught by educators as committed as the ones from whom I had the privilege of learning.

@Dan2108: I think you’re on to something.  If we taught children logic and how to evaluate evidence then people would be less gullible.

@R.T.: Is that it then? Trust of authority?  I don’t understand it.  When I ask somebody why they believe something that seems strange to me, sometimes they explain why (as in, there’s evidence for it and they just give me a reason why.)  But when it’s a strongly held belief linked to political/emotional identity they usually answer something like, “well, do you want [...opposite of belief] to be true?”  It really seems like they think you create reality by believing it hard enough.  So with that kind of thinking, why not believe whatever they want to believe from their trusted authoritarian representative?

There’s no lawsuit against that false reality stuff though.  If you can believe against all evidence, a lawsuit against your leader isn’t going to convince you.

felagund: RIGHT ON!

I got one of those too, but I usually don’t carry it around on my person unless I’m at airports.  Not too many rabid TVs in my neck of the woods.  Unfortunately, they don’t turn off the sound if the airport has it wired into the PA system.

Unfortunately, screaming, “Lies!”, at TVs in public places is a good way to get arrested.

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” The mainstream media has basically abandoned its mission to correct lies with the truth “

Is that the mission of the corporate media? I don’t think so; I think their mission is to make profits for their owners, and they do so by paying attention to the needs of their owners (massive megacorps) and their advertisers (usually also massive megacorps.)

And since the corporate world wants to continue it’s reverse-robin-hood wealth concentration scheme up to and past the point of sanity/sustainability, they’re not gonna spend a ton of time counteracting the views of the political party that best supports them.

ks—email Toyota corporate. Make it clear that this is an issue both for your use of this dealership and any future automobile purchases. Most dealerships, especially in the current climate, are absolutely paranoid about their customer ratings (ours keeps sending out begging emails asking me to fill out the satisfaction surveys after maintenance). Corporate won’t care about the channel per se, but “refused a reasonable request from two customers for political reasons” will get their attention.

I’d suggest that a better solution to whole problem would be to not ever buy a car that wasn’t manufactured by a member of the UAW. For liberals, it seems to me, that’s good policy and good politics.

As to lying, I tend to think there’s not a workable way to get rid of it. I’m very wary of someone like Driehaus winning because the corporatist side is always going to have more money for lawyers and if the precedents are set for suing for defamation over political ads, they’ll start filing them every time a Democrat runs an ad attack his opponent.

I think the real solution is if Republicans attack Democrats on abortion, the Democrats attack Republicans over corporate giveaways. Driehaus should use the money he’s spending on a lawyer to run an ad saying his opponent would prefer that babies die than that Bernie Maddoff pay even a cent more of income tax. It’s truer than the abortion thing and even if people don’t believe it or say it’s disgusting, it pushes the bounds of discourse back to the left.

felagund and idisynchronic:

Really.  Where can one get the remote to turn TVs off?  They interfere with my ability to read in waiting rooms, no matter what channel is on.  And they are always turned too loud to allow conversations, so the people who want to talk have to practically yell, making reading even harder.

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witless chum @23:
my immediate family owns three toyotas, one of which was built in CA and all of which are paid off and get better than counterpart “american” car mileage.  I will not be buying something made by UAW only because it was made by the UAW. 
That is not necessarily good policy or good politics for a liberal as other factors besides unions come into play.  Yours is a knee jerk suggestion that needs to be questioned.  For some, the balance will agree with you, for others it will not.  Buying the least amount of gas that would send money to countries who don’t like us via corps that keep intangling us in wars far outweighs the union interest, for me.  Other liberals may weigh the factors differently.

Also, the plant where the vehicle from CA was made was a joint venture with GM and unionized.  It is now closed.

Also, the plant where the vehicle from CA was made was a joint venture with GM and unionized.  It is now closed.

I’ve got one of the last year of Pontiac Vibes made in the same place, I think. My wife just got a Chevy Cruze made in Lordstown, OH.

I think doing something tangible to keep the union movement strong is ultimately more important than saving a bit of gas. A strong union movement is the best way I know to make left wing politics broad-based and popular. The road to using government power to lessening the amount of oil we burn leads through the union hall, I think. And forcing fuel efficiency standards seems like it’s going to do more than what you and I do ourselves.

I think I’ve got my knee jerking in the correct way. Here in Michigan, we’re currently circling the drain under a GOP legislature and Rick Snyder (who could be worse only in that he’s an old-style business Republican who swept in and humiliated the West Michigan-based religious conservative types who run the MI GOP, but can’t get elected to much away from Ottawa County. Snyder really seems to care a lot about lining his rich friends’ pockets and very little about punishing sexuality.) but we’ve held out for about 15 years longer than Indiana, for example, because of organized labor.

I just got a Chevy Cruze and it gets better mileage than the analogous corolla and has much more room inside, fwiw

For those upthread, Entomologista had the right link. The <a >TV-B-Gone</a> rocks my world. It just looks like part of my key ring. There has to be line of sight from the TV to the device, but otherwise it works like a charm on any TV. The thing about airport sound is also true.

HTML fail. Here’s the link.

The thing about airport sound is also true.

I just flew Virgin America this morning out of SFO, the newly rebuilt terminal 2.  It was amazingly quiet—none of those damned televisions…

This seems like a good place for me to repeat my fantasy of empowering certain government officials—and ONLY certain ones—with authority to make findings of fact.
Yes, the potential for abuse is obvious, but I think it’s worse now, when legislators and judges and executives at all levels are making findings of “fact” with no accountability.
Imagine the Surgeon General announcing, “In their recent narcotics bill, Congress has put cannabis in Schedule One, which means it has a potential for abuse and no medicinal value.  The former is true, the latter is false.  Congress has thirty days to correct their falsehood, or else every section pertaining to cannabis will be null and void.”
If I had my way, the Surgeon General’s ruling on matters of fact would be subject to appeal only to a two-thirds vote in Congress, like a veto override.

Stupid spam.

Buying union is something I balance with other considerations.  It’s a plus-one, just as them paying a living wage, or giving perks to their works - especially their contractors - is.  I try to source things locally if I can.

The last thing I’m going to do is buy something crappy because it was made locally, or made by a US company, or made by a union.  It has to be non-crap, at least.  Elsewise I might as well donate directly.

@Nimravid 17

“It really seems like they think you create reality by believing it hard enough.”

Tinkerbell rules! 

Unfortunately you’re right that a lot of people think this way.  They’ve got ‘us’ and ‘them’ determined in advance and no facts about the actual policies of either ‘us’ or ‘them’ will change their allegiance.  Most politics is tribal.

#17 - a young woman who works with me attended a college where EVERY student was required to pass a course in logic in order to graduate.  Wouldn’t the world be a better place if this were true of every college?
#23 - I was subjected to fox news while waiting in a tire place for my american-made Firestones to be installed, so only buying union products isn’t the answer.

Unions are wondrous things, but I will never buy an American car ever again, thanks.

It really seems like they think you create reality by believing it hard enough.

The habit of religion showing.

#14:

There, see? I just called it a lie. Not difficult in the slightest.

Calling something a lie and proving it in court are two very different things.  The statement is an assertion of a mental state.  Lotsa luck trying to demonstrate that it’s either true or false.

#37:  I’ve seen some of the so-called “courses in logic”.  IMHO, they’re worthless.  How do you get from

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

to “The most important thing that Congress needs to do is to cut the deficit”? Ya can’t get there from here.  What does “most important” mean?  What assumptions does the statement make?  What assumptions are implied?  Are they based on verifiable facts?  What is the person making the statement trying to do?  How does it fit into the context of a conversation?

What we need is rationality, not logic.  Unfortunately, the *last* thing that the Powers that Be want is a population that can think rationally, and that is willing to do so.  The best book I’ve found on the subject, by far, is S. I. Hayakawa’s “Language in Thought and Action”.

We do need rationality.  Dan2108 mentioned taking a course in epistemology in college, but if it was required to graduate grade school we’d get a horde of 11-year-old atheists.  I think there might be some resistance.

@ #41:  Good stuff.  I’ll have to check out that book.  You’re right to believe that a population that can think rationally isn’t very high on the plutocrat wish-list.

In electoral politics, I see rationality/lack of rationality to be one of the key factors in the rightward shift.  Typically, the left’s message deals with facts on the ground, and that message usually requires people to use the facts and then apply a moral (maybe not the best word) twist, i.e. “how will this help us have a stronger society?”  The idea of NOT cutting spending during a recession fits this model, and that’s a tough idea to reduce to a soundbite. 

The right’s message is always an emotional one.  I always think of Bush I’s Willie Horton ads:  “The Big Black Boogeyman is gonna get you if you vote for the Democrat!”  There’s no thinking or morality involved in this message; it’s an emotional plea designed to trigger fears.

Obviously, the second message is simpler and very powerful with people not ready to do the heavy thinking and empathizing required of any “left” message. 

I realize that “left” is a fantasy in this country, but really, any plea for social programs is typically dressed up in facts, and a large portion of our population isn’t equipped to handle that. 

If I may use Tim Leary’s 8-circuit model of consciousness (I find it a pretty helpful model of the modes of existence):

Circuit 1:  bio-survival.  What is there to eat?  Is there shelter?
Circuit 2:  emotional.  territorial.  Who is the top dog around here?  Where is the border?  Am I safe?
Circuit 3:  rational.  forming symbols and communicating. 
Circuit 4:  moral.  socio-sexual.  true relating. 

When I look at that model, I see that most Americans never get past the second circuit.  Blindly adopting the moral codes laid down by someone else doesn’t count as true 4th circuit morality to me, because that’s usually an emotional comfort issue.  Most politics of even a centrist variety have to rely on a message that uses circuits 3 & 4.  Think of how complicated Al Gore and John Kerry were to the average person who was impressed by Bush.  Too many big words.  Too many “concepts.”  Not enough emotional appeal. 

We can be rational and call for empathy all we want, but as long as a lot of the public hasn’t evolved past the first 2 levels (which are the bare minimum needs for survival), we’re not communicating to a large portion of the population.  Leary called this a “wrong address” problem. 

Some days I think there will be a solution, other days not so much.  I imagine things will have to get so bad in this country that policies that actually create jobs and raise the general welfare will become an emotional and survival issue rather than an ethereal concept that lacks the emotional bite of reactionary politics.  God knows that the Democratic party isn’t so concerned with promoting general social welfare, let alone formulating a good emotional strategy to win while running on center-left platforms.

Unions are wondrous things, but I will never buy an American car ever again, thanks.

Let’s say a Toyota is actually better than a Chevy, which I don’t really buy, but okay. Doesn’t the fact that one’s made by a union worker enough to make up for it being rated good by Consumer Reports instead of Excellent? I’d argue yes.

I’ve never owned anything but American cars and I haven’t been driven into the poorhouse by repair bills or anything.

But I’m not holding my breath for people to listen. I couldn’t talk my own mother out of buying a Prius.

Dr. Psycho, 34:

This seems like a good place for me to repeat my fantasy of empowering certain government officials—and ONLY certain ones—with authority to make findings of fact.

Nice thought, but fact is inherently not subject to the political process. Quis custodiet and all; there is no office you can assign this privilege or create to give it to that you can guarantee will never be occupied by someone who will abuse it.

lightning, 40:

Calling something a lie and proving it in court are two very different things.  The statement is an assertion of a mental state.  Lotsa luck trying to demonstrate that it’s either true or false.

Ah. I’m not thinking about court, I’m thinking about proving it in the media. Which is more important overall, if less important to Rep. Dreihaus.

Witless Chum:

It’s not like unions (and, by extension, unionized voters) have been consistently liberal across all issues. From the Teamsters going against FDR to fairly recent examples of racism, sexism and homophobia; unions have a spotty record when it comes to many aspects of the liberal agenda. They’ve been described as an economically liberal yet socially conservative constituency and said description is historically accurate. I agree with you that unionized labor is a key pillar of the progressive movement, but I’m not going to write them a blank check figuratively (e.g. assuming 100% alignment across the whole political spectrum) or literally (i.e. buying a suboptimal product).

Is it really a thing for people to apparently know their car’s entire geneology? Crap, I can barely remember Make, Model, and Color without looking! Cars all basically look the same to me. If I didn’t have a Pro-Choice license plate finding my car in a parking lot would be a lot harder (it’s a bit disappointing that in wildly pro-choice HI I’ve only seen one other car with one).

My family always bought their cars used, and I’ve had even less choice in mine—I usually buy from a friend or friend of a friend, since I’d trust these friend’s opinions about cars far more than my own. I sometimes remember that fluids occasionally need to be added, but anything past that just doesn’t stick.

My friend’s wife is one of these people; when she came to my workplace once to check out an engine problem my co-workers seemed to think a female auto mechanic was something like a duck with three heads.

It’s not like unions (and, by extension, unionized voters) have been consistently liberal across all issues. From the Teamsters going against FDR to fairly recent examples of racism, sexism and homophobia; unions have a spotty record when it comes to many aspects of the liberal agenda. They’ve been described as an economically liberal yet socially conservative constituency and said description is historically accurate. I agree with you that unionized labor is a key pillar of the progressive movement, but I’m not going to write them a blank check figuratively (e.g. assuming 100% alignment across the whole political spectrum) or literally (i.e. buying a suboptimal product).

All true, though unions more recently have mostly been good liberals across the board. The membership is another thing, but the proven way to get socially conservative people to vote for the Democrats is to have them be in a union. I remember a friend of mine’s boyfriend who is an-NRA leaning, conservative country boy (and, honestly, a huge asshole) going all-out campaigning for John Kerry because of what he was hearing from Operating Engineers Local whatever it was. 

The choice between social conservatives who vote Republican and social conservatives who vote Democrat doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me. There are certainly other ways to convince people to change their views and vote for the Democrats, but union membership is a proven one.

I’m not anywhere near pure in this regard. I don’t research products as much as I really should, but I just think cars are an easy case where you don’t have to do much research beyond the sticker inside in the door. And maybe I underestimate how you people feel about your cars? I hate my car and I wish I didn’t have to drive it places, but that’s where I live. So, I might as well use it as a means of political expression. I get the impression a lot of people like cars.

Witless chum:

I agree that it’s better to have social conservatives voting Dem than voting GOP, but those social conservatives within the Democratic party also condition which candidates will be supported by the party. Extending the argument for social conservatives to vote Democrat would justify inviting the Dixiecrats back into the party, wouldn’t it? To use a more recent example, NRA-leaning conservative country boys like the one you described were probably the key voters for Zell Miller, who only left the party when those guys ceased to be numerous enough.

I’m all for Dems winning elections, but I also want the party and its candidates to be as good as they can be. After all, Bart Stupak is a Democrat and that doesnt’ make him any less of an asshole. While I understand electoral math, I think the Democratic Party is better off without Miller and will be better off without Stupak. It’s painful but worthwhile to lose both of them (and their typical supporters) just like it was painful but worthwhile to say buh-bye to Strom Thurmond, Chris Smith and their respective supporters. That’s why I’m reluctant to give a blank check of any kind to unionized labor.

I am guilty as charged on the car issue. You are absolutely right. I admit I over-research my purchases to the point of obsession and I’ve always bought the best car I could afford. People ask for my input when they decide they need a new car; and avoid talking about cars at any other point in time because they know I’ll bore them to death comparing supercharger surges and power-to-weight ratios. For better or for worse, it’s a side effect of growing up surrounded by twisty mountain roads that provide unlimited driving pleasure.

Mark Temporis, 47:

If I didn’t have a Pro-Choice license plate finding my car in a parking lot would be a lot harder (it’s a bit disappointing that in wildly pro-choice HI I’ve only seen one other car with one).

Look at it this way: how many pro-eating-food tags do you see? How many declaring the driver to have a nose?
(With apologies to the noseless, who don’t deserve to be tarred with the anti-choice brush)

Dan2108, 49:

I agree that it’s better to have social conservatives voting Dem than voting GOP, but those social conservatives within the Democratic party also condition which candidates will be supported by the party.

That’s why I think the Dems should kick out all the moderates. Move the party to the left, and either the Republican Party will follow, or a centrist party will crop up; either way, the power of the far right would be diluted.

I’m all for Dems winning elections

I’m not. I don’t even want liberals to win elections.

I have a certain set of values I want supported. In the current political climate, those are liberal values espoused by Democrats.

I differ from self-righteously dimesworther “independents” in that I acknowledge that makes me a liberal, at least right now, and I am a registered Democrat. Technically I vote based on my values, but my default assumption is that the liberal candidate, if any, supports them, even if she’s Gillibrand.

So I don’t care if the party is good, because I’m not all that attached to the “Democrat” brand; I don’t want the best Democrats because I’m going to vote for the Democrat anyway, I want the best people and they usually end up being Democrats.