“Just the facts ma’am.” That’s all I want, but few people
seem to bother finding out what the actual facts ARE.
Everywhere I see people stating what they claim are “facts”
without having the evidence to back up what they say.
I recently read a letter in the local paper (see my response,
below). The author complained about the $9000-per-childper-
year cost for public education. He then claimed a
person could send their child to a private school for just
$3000 a year, so therefore the government was being
wasteful.
When I saw these statements, red flags went up in my head.
I decided to see for myself exactly how much private
schools cost. It took me less than 15 minutes on the Internet
to find the evidence that proved this person was completely
out of his mind. In fact the lowest cost private high school I
found charged $8,610 and others cost $9500 and $17,350.
This type of thing is not rare. Statements get made with no
basis in fact whatsoever, then others repeat them and after
a while no one questions whether or not they are actually
true. No one bothers to do any “fact checking”.
People arguing against public schools often claim that
“Private industry does a better job than government”. I
have to shake my head and wonder what they heck these
people are thinking? How about Enron, Worldcom and all
the other corruption-ridden companies? Should we pay
our principals like the CEOs of private companies? Are we
to treat our children no different than we treat manufactured
products?
One of my favorite so-called “facts” is “the entire media is
controlled by liberals”. I guess they don’t notice all the
conservative talk radio shows out there, it’s nearly
impossible to find a liberal one! How about broadcast
news? Just look at the “Fair and Balanced” FOX network.
In fact, the media are big conservative corporations — and
so are their sponsors! The media isn’t going to run
anything that would cause them to loose out on this big
money. “Liberal Media” is a myth and we need to let
people know this whenever we see that myth being spread.
Heck, these days, you can get called un-patriotic for even
THINKING something the government is telling you just
might be a load of nonsense. Take for example the latest
Bush lies of “Saddam is building weapons of mass
destruction” or “Saddam is working with Bin Laden”.
There was no evidence of any of this before the war, and
now, after several weeks we STILL haven’t found any
evidence.
It’s as if we should all be good boys and girls and never
question anything we are told. Never worry about evidence
or supporting your claims. This is how the Christian right
is getting Creationism into our schools. They are simply
taking the same initiative that every other conservative
group is, bulldozing forward and never bothering to
support their claims.
So I would encourage everyone to PLEASE speak up when
you hear someone touting unsupported “facts” about
things that you truly care about. We on the liberal side of
things have been silent too long. We can no longer afford to
let these bullies run the show any more.
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Angela C. Byers
Copyright © 1996 - 2003 Angela C. Byers