Originally Posted by
Drummond
Taken on its own merits, Evmetro, you make your point very well. It hangs together logically, and so it comes across as persuasive.
But I see a flaw in your argument ... in terms of its application, anyway.
If you could look at Right wing information sources, and then Leftie information sources, and fully and comfortably equivocate between the two, and fairly weigh them by reliably taking as truth points from each, yours would be a highly reasonable approach. This is how it SHOULD be.
It's just not that simple, though.
It's in the nature of Left wing sources to propagandise. To inject bias. To weight facts in favour of their agenda, to pontificate from them and reach conclusions from them, while at the same time completely ignoring information that doesn't favour the bias.
Yesterday I saw an example posted by Kathianne of just that, on another thread. A biased piece, designed to say that the UK response to Covid-19 was shambolic. That piece included certain factual information, and ignored other facts that disproved the contention of the article.
My point is this: as a rule of thumb, you CANNOT take Left wing material on face value. 'Discern' from it what you will, but in doing that, are you being misled ? Is the whole discernment process corrupted, rendered useless, through propagandist deception ?
As I see it, you'd have two options: one, hope that counterbalancing Right wing material is 'on the case', and allows you to pick up on the deception. Or, two, just treat the Left wing material with such suspicion that you think it wiser to disregard it altogether.
Option one only works well if counterbalances to Left wing material will always be there, always read, always a part of achieving the proper balance. ANY failure of this to happen gives the Leftie 'disinformation' its unfair edge.
Option 2 is therefore far better. Discern from using material you feel you can trust, and actively, very deliberately, disregard the rest.
So it is that I don't equivocate myself, and I rely on Right wing sources whenever I can. I do it deliberately, because doing otherwise just isn't reasonable.
I recommend you do the same.