had a debate the other day with a local fellow on FB. It stemmed from a comment I made on a local news station’s FB page. The title of their news piece led with “Coronavirus: Facts Not Fear…” and the subtitle led with “As the US coronavirus death toll tops 98,000…”. I zeroed in on the verbiage used and was simply commenting on the bias that was implied through the titles alone was unbalanced and only fed into the hysteria of those consuming their attempts at presenting what is supposed to be not “fake” news.
This brought on a liberal who apparently lives in my general vicinity and who really wanted to bring me to task on the error of my ways. My first comment on the “news” piece was to only add balance to what I perceived as misleading “news” or as folks should call it, “fake news”.
It is quite ironic that conversation took place on FB during a time when much censoring is being done by the FB platform under the false pretense of exposing “fake news”.
This individual came out of the chute exposing his own biased worldview by stating to me, in regard to the article I posted to demonstrate an alternate and perhaps more truthful side of the virus response:
“John Hicks Media bias Fact Check: Overall, we rate Spiked Magazine Right Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that mostly favor the right. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to a failed a fact check as well as publishing misleading scientific information.”
I simply responded:
“so liberal would be better? I would beg to differ due to liberal ideology being self-defeating in that the foundational worldview of the left is fallacious at best...” and “if I cited a liberally biased piece would it get same disclaimer from you? 😉😉”
I also asked him to respond directly to the validity of the claims made in the article that I posted in my initial response:
“Was the article I posted facted checked itself and if so what were the problems with the information in it? Misleading...do you mean away from your narrative? Please explain… You played your hand as fully biased and unbalanced. Not a surprise.”
He immediately opened his kimono to reveal the true bleeding-heart liberal that he was by claiming:
“John Hicks What is a Conservative? Conservatives represent the domination of society by an oligarchy and theocracy. What is wrong with Conservatives? Conservatives "are incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. they are in favor of a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world." 😆😅😂🤣”
I had to fact check him further on his views of conservativism not being his own original thoughts even though he seemed to be passing them off as if they were:
“you said earlier on in the conversation that "What is a Conservative? Conservatives represent the domination of society by an oligarchy and theocracy. What is wrong with Conservatives? Conservatives "are incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. they are in favor of a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world." " This proves that you apparently cannot think on your own. You cited this verbatim from https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html by Philip E. Agre and do not even give him or the site credit. Shame on you for plagiarizing in an attempt to pass other's thoughts off as your own original thoughts. I am not surprised though as this is what I see as common in the many like debates that I have with liberals over the many years of my life...”
Going back to the article that I posted, it was an interview with the former Israeli Health Minister and how he saw the global response to the virus as being overstated and disproportionate to reality. It was admittedly one man’s opinion, but I offered my opinion coupled with facts as well to this naysayer who was attempting to bring me to task. I did this specifically to provide a less arbitrary response from my position and to provoke this skeptic into doing the same, which was to provide his own less than arbitrary response, which he ultimately failed to do.
This was what I responded with:
“The socialistic measures taken to fight this CCP-19 bugger are more deadly than the bugger itself as they have impacted the economy in such a way that the GDP across the globe is being reversed. The increase in the GDP across the board over the past decades have been proven and are economic fact, in that increasing the overall productivity, a conservative concept, decreases poverty which in turn increases life quality and expectancy globally. By shutting down the economy through draconian measures we are seeing an immediate reversal in the GDP which will thus bring with it increased poverty as well as decreased life expectancy as well as quality of life. These are facts you can check anytime and will find to be true. Shutting down work and handing out free fiat money that the FED literally creates out of thin air are not conservative principles but instead are left leaning and destructive. The increased money supply as the result and everything comes with a stalled economy, unemployment, etc, is going to give us an extremely harsh life ahead of us. You can wallow in your liberal suicidal ideology all you want but you will be one of the many who will be responsible for what we are about to go through. Feel free to read through any of my posts over the last few months. You may learn something new and see the light”
Of course, I was not surprised when this individual responded with a purely arbitrary response:
“John Hicks I disagree with you, but I can see why you think that, given the sources of information that you have. Since further conversation would be useless, I'll just say have a nice day!! 😏😏”
What I got in return were a slew of links only from the Media bias Fact Check (MBFC) website stating the sources I refer to on my own FB page were biased towards the right. He did this about five times without providing any constructive thoughts of his own.
I am sure he was thinking that he got me good with those stunning links from his beloved and supposedly unbiased fact checking website.
I responded with a request for him to engage more directly in the conversation:
“you said "I disagree with you" which is arbitrary at best. Prove me wrong on the GDP point. Those are my thoughts and ideas not links which you are so apt at finding in MBFC. Try thinking for a moment and give me a constructive answer instead of subjective fluff. Economics is a passion of mine and what is happening through the FED and the measures in place via local, Federal and global govs will be far more detrimental towards life than any virus currently can or will. You cannot turn off the productivity and expect lives to be better for it.”
His response back was:
“John Hicks You sir are a joke!!! 😆😅😂🤣”
This did not surprise me coming from a liberal. My final response below will explain this in further detail but in the meantime, I did a quick media bias fact check of my own and was not surprised at all at what I found.
This was my final response:
“Your beloved MBFC has SNOPES as "Least Biased" but anecdotally and now through various reporting attempts by others I have seen quite the opposite. When called on the carpet on their bias leanings they chose instead to hide under the carpet. The Daily Mail released a scorcher of a report that exposed Snopes as being not so above board on morals including their supposed neutrality in all things political. Kalev Leetaru at Forbes attempted to ferret out the truth regarding DM's article and wrote about it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#4d779f10227f. It really comes to no surprise that Kalev came up against a wall of secrecy and vain attempts from the owner of Snopes in order which obviously was done so in a weak attempt to skirt answering the tough questions or to offer any evidence to support vindication for the site. At the end of the day their bias was essentially confirmed but one really only needs to read how Snopes present their "findings". The liberal tone screams off the site's pages like a disgruntled child not getting his way. It is a truly sad site to behold. Of course, you may retort with MBFC labeling Forbes as biased towards the Right and, you know what? So what? What it all comes down to is one's worldview and how logically stable their foundational beliefs are in light of actual truth. Many on the Right side of thinking actually believe in an absolute truth so they have a solid plumb line to guide them through life while others, and many of them, on the left believe there is no absolute truth and that the truth is relative. This is a quicksand philosophy that gives no solid foundation or direction, and this confirms, as far as I am concerned, what I said at the very beginning, that the leftists' worldview is self-defeating or suicidal at best.”