Media "logic"

 

Jack Hellner at American Thinker points out the sheer idiocy of the mainstream media:

This morning on the Today Show, White House doctor and Covid-19 “response coordinator” Ashish Jha was asked about the shortage of children’s medicine. He said there is plenty of supply, but demand is just too high. The hosts on the Today Show didn’t seem to have a problem with such a stupid answer, as they breezed on without even taking a moment to consider the absurdity of his statement. Why is this man treated as an expert on anything?

Using Jha’s “logic”:

• Last year there was not a shortage of baby formula, there were just too many darn mothers wanting to feed their hungry babies.
• There will not be a shortage of heating oil this year, there will just be too many people wanting to heat their homes.
• The economy is doing fantastic, if only real wages hadn’t been dropping for two years straight. 
• The border is closed and secure, there are just too many illegals wanting to cross.
• The Biden policies are working well; conservatives are just racist.
• Crime is under control in major Democrat run cities; there are just too many criminals on the streets.
• The Afghanistan exit went perfectly well, if not for the deaths, and weapons left behind for terrorists.

The media personalities that allow Jha a pass on his contradictions are the same people that have done little (if any) reporting on the outrageous collusion between government Swamp creatures and the leftwing activists at Twitter to squelch bad press on the Biden family corruption. They were not outraged that Trump and other conservative voices were silenced. They didn’t care that respected and renowned members of the medical community were banned from a social media platform for daring to offer alternative views on the Covid-19 narrative, or disagreeing with governments dictatorial edicts. . . .

The above is most of the column;  the last little bit is here.

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Dennis Prager on “leftism” and “meaning”

image credit: drray.com

Starting off 2020 on a philosophical note. . .  Dennis Prager recently published “Greta Thunberg: A Living Explanation of the Left” at Real Clear Politics. His article considers the difference between a “liberal” and a “leftist,” and why conservative and leftists are unable to communicate with each other.  He begins:

It is not easy to understand what the left -- as opposed to liberals -- stands for. If you ask a Christian what to read to learn the basics of Christianity, you will be told the Bible. If you ask a (religious) Jew, you will be told the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. If you ask a Mormon, you will be told the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Ask a Muslim and you will be told the Quran.

But if you ask a leftist what one or two books you should read to understand leftism, every leftist will give you a different answer -- or need some time to think it over. Few, if any, will suggest Marx's "Das Kapital" because almost no leftists have read it and because you will either not finish the book or reject it as incoherent.

So, then, how is one to understand what leftism stands for?

The truth is -- it is almost impossible. What leftist in history would have ever imagined that to be a leftist, one would have to believe that men give birth or men have periods, or that it is fair to women to have to compete in sports with biological males who identify as females?

There are two primary reasons it is so difficult, if not impossible, to define leftism. One is that it ultimately stands for chaos:

-- Open borders.

-- "Non-binary" genders.

-- Nonsensical and scatological "art."

-- "Music" without tonality, melody or harmony.

-- Drag Queen Story Hour for 5-year-olds.

-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse civilizations.

-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse art.

-- Removal of Shakespeare's picture from a university English department because he was a white male.

-- The end of all use of fossil fuels -- even in transportation (as per the recent recommendation by the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization).

-- The dismantling of capitalism, the economic engine that has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty.

And much more.

The other major reason it is impossible to define leftism is that it is emotion-based. Leftism consists of causes that give those who otherwise lack meaning something to cling to for meaning.

Two things about Greta Thunberg, Time magazine's 2019 person of the year, embody these explanations.

Mr. Prager goes on to illustrate the emotional need for “meaning” by examining the strange case of St. Greta.  It explains why those who employ facts and logic have little chance of persuading those whose grasp of facts and logic are subordinate to their emotional needs.  But is also helps those who employ logic and facts to understand the rantings of Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Cher, mainstream media hosts such as Don Lemon and Joy Reid, etc.  Read the rest here.

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