Actions taken with the best of intentions by ignorant people will always have a bad result.
To explain this one we could talk about the results of creating an entitlement culture, results such as those Britain is suffering from her rioting youths. We could point to most of the progressive liberal agenda in America as well. Consider America’s inner city communities. The poverty rates, unemployment rates, single parent family rates, crime rates, drug usage rates, and just about every other bad “rate” you can think of are much, much worse now and the direct result of the War on Poverty begun in the mid ‘60s than they were before that “war” began.
However, rather than get too heavy, here is a simple little tale of what happens when a person thinks she understands something, but doesn’t, and then acts on that understanding with every intention of helping, and doesn’t.
My first wife and I were at a local plywood mill to get her paycheck. As we came out of the office, she noticed clinging to the side of the building a very large moth, at least 4 inches across, perhaps larger. It was one of those moths that could change its color and patterning to match the background. It was already starting to turn a sickly light green that was the building’s wall color. It was a spectacular creature, really.
“Oh, this poor thing isn’t safe here,” she said. Plywood mills are inherently dangerous places for people and she was imputing those dangers to the moth. After all, at least people understand and can mostly protect themselves from racing front end loaders, screaming saw blades, flying wood chips, slamming steel conveyor systems, overhead cranes carrying large heavy objects and the like. This poor moth had made a bad choice for a place to rest.
She scooped it up in her hands and said she intended to take it into town to set it free in a safer place. So we drove into town, and stopped on Main Street to go into the post office. Once out of the car, she flung her hands into the air, releasing the moth, which then flew straight upwards.
Free, free at last! And safe, for the first 10 feet, at which point a large bird swooped in and grabbed that moth in mid-air.
My wife was left staring open mouthed at the spot where a little puffy cloud of feathery moth wing particles hovered briefly and then slowly rained down on her upturned, horrified face.
MSM Follies
I have for a while been ranting, sometimes here, but usually just to myself or the boys at the bar, about the hypocrisy and basic dishonesty of the mainstream media. The bias is blatantly liberal and progressive. Unless, of course, you’re a liberal or progressive, in which case it is, as FOX says, “fair and balanced.”
Seriously, though, you would think even the MSM would start feeling just a wee bit embarrassed about being so obviously two-faced.
Rick Perry recently said that if Bernanke and the Federal Reserve print more money it would be “treacherous,” perhaps even “treasonous” and if he might get treated “pretty ugly” if he came to Texas. Did the MSM ever howl! They are still screaming to high heaven (oops, they don’t believe in that). Yet, Biden recently called the Republicans in Congress “terrorists,” a label that any number of progressive pundits and “journalists” routinely use to describe Tea Party members. Even Obama has exhorted his followers to bring “guns to a knife fight” with his “enemies.”
A lot of people, me included, get upset with the unfairness of it, thinking that the MSM has the power to and does shape opinion far and wide. If it weren't for the extremely liberal press we lament, the whole progressive house of cards would come tumbling down. Lately, however, I have been changing my mind about that.
Delusional is the word that often comes to my mind for those who believe the tripe the MSM is generally serving up as “journalism.” Indeed, I think that many in press themselves are delusional. According to my good old Webster’s ”delusional” (as I just used it) means “a false belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that persist despite the facts and is common in some psychotic states.” (That means state of mind, not California. Or does it?) That whole idea of a delusional press has been tugging at me, suggesting to me that it’s not as bad as I may think.
Does anyone listen to a delusional person besides his therapist? When confronted by a delusional person don’t we quietly back away and try not to make any threatening or sudden moves. Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact!
Is anyone paying attention to the MSM other than those who already are of the same mind, the same thinking, the same delusions? I’m beginning to think not.
Recently I ran across a neat little essay/blog by Walter Russell Mead dated August 16, 2011 in American Interest.com. Mead’s basic premise is that the MSM, far from helping the liberal agenda, actually hurts it. By constantly affirming to liberals that they are always right and the conservatives are always wrong, the MSM lulls liberals into ignoring reality and getting walloped time and again by events and outcomes they don’t understand or didn’t see coming.
Mead has some wonderful turns of phrase. Here is one that I loved.
“To the extent that they think about it — as opposed to simply letting their little lights artlessly shine — liberal journalists seem to think that acting like cheerleaders strengthens their team. It doesn’t."That’s just about the worst insult one can give to those journalists, the ones who are “letting their little lights artlessly shine…” Ouchy mamma!
Mead starts with a discussion of the coverage and commentary on the recent Wisconsin recall elections proclaimed by most of the MSM as a victory for Democrats because they picked up two Senate seats after all the dust had settled. As Mead points out, the Republicans still hold the majority, the union busting law is still on the books and deemed constitutional, the Governor appears to be as popular as when he was elected, and to achieve this “victory” the Democrats spent scores of millions. He goes on to point to other examples such as Kerry and his war record, Gore and his pretentious elitism, and even Obama with the stimulus and cap and trade. Mead summarizes this way:
“Over and over again in modern American politics, liberals have developed “frames” and strategies for key issues that they think will shift the debate their way. Over and over again the echo chamber of the liberal press resounds with praises of the new approach. And over and over again liberals “unexpectedly” get sucker punched by conservative counter attacks a more critical press would have forecast as both inevitable and deadly.”Mead finishes with: “Sometimes one wonders: is the liberal press secretly taking the Koch brothers’ money?”
So maybe the blatant hypocrisy of the MSM, their complete willingness to forgive liberals anything, Obama especially, and their refusal to ask any critical questions, investigate or fact check anything progressive is a good thing.
I’m beginning to think so.
