On Redefining Illiteracy and Innumeracy

I’ve been highly frustrated recently by the appalling level 0f uncivil discourse at town hall meetings. Here’s the latest experience for Howard Dean as reported by the Hill. Yesterday, I watched Senator John McCain’s meeting and his was booed several times for making statements that were true by definition. The hatred in the air is palpable even over a TV screen. What reasonable person could argue with something that is true by definition? It’s the most basic proof of all.

Well, we seemed to have lost our ability to present opposing viewpoints with the use of logic, data, and information. I was thinking about this on my drive across the bayous to campus this morning for several reason. First, I had a run-in with a group of Beck worshipers (yes, he’s a loser babee, but he’s not the singer). Second, I’m in my first set of lectures where I have to set up some definitions so we can move forward with the rest. That’s when I figured it out. There’s an entire misinformation industry out there making money on confusing the intellectually vulnerable on standard definitions. It’s now so bad,that you can say that’s untrue by definition or it’s a tautology and folks will tell you it’s just skewed data or your opinion.

How can you possibly reason with any one who thinks your data is bad because their basic definition is flawed? How do you debate some one who has refitted and redefined a definition to match their argument rather than some one who looks at the definition and tries to fit the argument to the definition? Well, you can’t. Especially when they actually believe that the generally excepted definition is arguable. To me, this redefines both illiteracy and innumeracy.

When we are very young toddlers, we start learning to posit definitions with the help of our elders. Every one who has seen a toddler call every four legged furry animal a doggie has seen this happen. We say, no, that’s not a doggie, that’s a kitty or a horsie or a moo cow, until the toddler can put the animal into the correct set. The correct set is the universally agreed upon definition of the term. The toddler does not argue that your definition of kitty is your opinion. We’d never be able to communicate with any one if we each had unique definitions for every word. Yet, there are those with political and personal agendas that would make it so.

This is what has happened in political discourse. The generally accepted and agreed upon definitions of socialism, fascism, liberalism, racism, and other related terms are now malleable and debatable. Glen Beck is one example of a person that redefines and distorts these generally accepted definitions for a living. He’s the reason I beat my head against the wall whenever I have to tell person, that by definition, Barack Obama is not a socialist or a fascist. Keith Olbermann is another example. He’s the reason I beat my head against the wall whenever I have to tell a person, by definition, that Bill Clinton is not a racist. These ‘misinformants’ have completely made up their own definitions. As a result, those of us that follow the traditional, universally agreed upon definitions set up by scholars in the fields cannot have a civil discourse with any of their minions.

Here, let me show you. I’m going to borrow the Merriam Webster Dictionary of definition of Socialism. It’s short and sweet.

Main Entry: so·cial·ism

Pronunciation: \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\

Function: noun

Date: 1837

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Take a good look at that definition and tell me, just once, when anything Barack Obama has said or done to date has had anything to do with advocating collective or governmental administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. He didn’t do it with Chrysler, he didn’t do it with GM, and he hasn’t done it to any financial institution that was held in momentary receivership, given TARP funds, or pushed towards bankruptcy. What he has done has been to take public funds and pour them into privately owned means of production and distribution of goods. GM is still owned by stockholders and now, very much, by its unions who have been enriched by tax payer dollars. All those financial institutions have not been nationalized but they have been given sweetheart loans. If he was a socialist he’d have jumped at the opportunity to grab their assets and he did nothing of the kind. If anything, he typifies cronyism. He is not a socialist.

I lifted this from the Black Agenda Report!!!

Also, the socialists themselves don’t claim him. I’ve been reading the very left leaning Black Agenda Report for months. They can’t stand him. The one openly socialist Senator we have, Bernie Sanders, doesn’t agree with Obama’s policies on health care or corporate bail outs or trade. Heck, even Socialist activist John Pilger thinks he’s a “clever corporate marketing creation.”

So, give then definition above and the data below it, can I get a shout out that BY definition, Barack Obama is NO socialist !

No? Are you going to give me the guilt by association argument? He knows a few socialists, therefore he is a socialist? (In that case I should be a Christian and a Republican because most of the folks I know, work with, live by and are related to are those and I’m neither.) What else can you do? Well, if you’re a Glenn Beck Acolyte you will take his misdefinition and tell me, just wait because I will eventually be proven wrong or that my data is skewed or that I really don’t know a thing about real socialism. I was even told by several Becksters that my data was skewed and my facts were wrong when I sent them to look at the CIA website containing the CIA factbook. I was told that all sites can be hacked. What do you say to people that think the CIA website can be hacked and that they manipulate their data to make Cuba look good?

Anyway. I picked this example, but I could’ve just as easily deconstructed the Bill Clinton is a racist meme which I just

One of the Media Ministers Of Misinformation

may do when I get pissed enough about that too! This is the deal. We are letting a few on air personalities turn people into illiterate and innumerate shrieking morons. It’s a problem when you’re in a democracy. I may have a captive group of students with whom I can reasonably demonstrate what socialism is and is not because that’s part of my job. But how do you reach the millions of folks that listen and watch these gasbags? They all need to be removed from whatever airwaves because they’re damaging the democracy for their own personal gain. Their corporate masters need to be boycotted and punished for profiting from the proliferation of ignorance.

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