The media sin of reporting and debating from false premises
My friend Nodrog sent me this righteous rant about arguments from false premises and said that I could publish it here.
This is obvious, but I get annoyed more and more by commentators — conservative commentators in particular — accepting a false premise and arguing from that position.
Trump lost the 2020 election — so the false assumption was that he didn’t receive enough votes, but we know he did. It’s been proven. There can be no doubt; however, it’s still “what Trump did wrong to lose”.
Climate change insists carbon dioxide is a pollutant, so even those claiming “climate change” is a scam talk about China and India “polluting” (yes, they do – but the carbon component isn’t the problem).
White supremacy, gender fluidity, Jan 6th — all are reported from the standpoint that they are real.
Everyone — everyone — feels that they have to preface any Jan 6th comment with a condemnation of violence and “it should never have happened” — which just reinforces the false narrative. No one prefaces the 2020 riots with a “violence cannot be tolerated” comment. Instead, the conservative media just point to the difference in penalties and DOJ approach.
Jan 6th should have happened — it was what America stands for or, at least, stood for — protesting and making their feelings known. The fact that some were herded into the Capitol building was not a problem and the disruption of the proceedings was not a problem. The only problem was Epps’ incitement and the team of professional provocateurs. You could say that one person disrupting proceedings is selfish self-aggrandizement (probably), while half a million is democracy.
It’s Seinfeld’s “not that there is anything wrong with that” approach to public discourse. And it’s ridiculous. Yes – quite often there is something wrong with that, and it needs to be said, and said, and said, and said again.
[The only thing I would add is the ridiculousness of conservatives using “preferred pronouns” as if transgenderism is anything but a unicorn fantasy.]
Image by freestockcenter (cropped).