Conserve Your Mind

What is a conservative mind set? Is the United States indeed the model of freedom for the rest of the world? Are liberals un-patriotic? Could liberals live in the world they propose? These and other political and philosophical ideas are explored here by me and select others.

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Freedom is probably the most over-used, misunderstood words of our time. It is not the so-called freedom sought by the adolescent who wishes to wear a t-shirt with a four-letter word across it to school. This display is not the essence of freedom at all. John Locke himself made a distinction between patently offensive acts that in and of themselves actually degrade true freedom by creating societal disharmony and hostility. This I will explore more extensively later. I primarily have an interest in testing the ideas and assertions of todays politicians, pundits and pseudo intellectuals. Please come along and see if freedom and truth can be preserved.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Snopes.com The liberal truth is easy...




This is an excerpt from an email I received from DS(J.D.) as a result of discussing misguided liberals/leftists. DS exposes the outright and expansive nature of leftwing apologies pedaled by Snopes.com :

Perhaps you want to discover the origin of an urban legend or verify that the photo of a 45-pound cat someone emailed you isn’t a doctored photo. Maybe you want to know if Proctor & Gamble’s logo is really satanic. Snopes.com (hereafter “snopes”) is good for verifying unimportant stuff like that, but don’t count on them being “fair and balanced” when it comes to anything political or religious. Although Snopes hasn’t any political philosophy explicitly stated on the website, snopes’ selectivity and analysis of political emails oozes with partisanship. Religious emails don’t fare much better and typically get a liberal hatchet job. In a nutshell, although snopes has to reluctantly admit that most of the conservative political and religious emails are “true” as far as snopes can determine, there is always a caveat, disclaimer, footnote, or lengthy oratory explaining why everything from crime statistics to reports from Iraq must be viewed and understood through snopes’ lens. Some examples and links follow:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/kerry.asp
An email made its way around the country recently showing a picture of John Kerry at an anti-war rally with Jane Fonda. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Snopes thinks ten thousand words is the only antidote to spinning this photo that Snopes had to admit was true. Indeed, Snopes has gone into high gear to rescue John Kerry from being associated with the extreme left. Snopes uses extensive quotes from Jane Fonda to demonstrate that John Kerry was not as much of a foaming at the mouth liberal as she herself was [is]. Snopes also quotes extensively from New York Times (and thought better perhaps of using their sources at Pravda and Granma) to prove what the “atmosphere” was like at these love-fests that Kerry participated in and spoke at. A small unexplained B&W photo appears on the right hand side of the screen depicting a cleaner-cut John Kerry being decorated in an apparent attempt to show he did in fact do something noteworthy and wasn’t simply a hippie as depicted in the larger, color photo.
Snopes said the derogatory photo “purports” to show John Kerry, only to reluctantly admit in the next sentence that indeed the photo is real. Get your index finger and mouse ready to scroll down the pages and pages of voluminous material on Snopes beseeching you to ignore the photo and get to know the real John Kerry.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/crossed.asp
Snopes seems to have been exhausted by all the time it spent trying to exonerate Kerry that it lacked the energy to investigate a photo that is also real. In a photo depicting a soldier shaking hands with Hillary Clinton, the soldier crossed his fingers (visible in the photo) to memorialize his displeasure with being used in a photo-op by the hippie-turned-senator. Try crossing your finger right now the way the soldier did it in the photo. It’s not a reflexive position and must have been deliberate on part of the soldier. Hillary made only one trip to see our troops, so it is not a Herculean task to track down the person who took the photo as well as the soldier in it.

Some more food for thought:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
Verifies quotes from democrats were true but
goes on and on trying to defend democrats.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/mystic.asp
Attempts to speak to veracity of email urging boycott of Sean Penn and Tim Robbins’ movies since they are Sadaam Hussein and Osama bin Laden sympathizers. Snopes says “still under investigation Nov 2003.” I could wrap that investigation up in about 2 minutes. Those 2 are bona fide liberals and whackos (or is that redundant?)

You may have received this email yourself. It is an amazing and true litany of accomplishments of the US military in Iraq. Snopes can’t seem to utter the words “it’s true” so it gets a half green, half red light. It’s truth is called into question by “an Iraqi citizen” A link to the criticism is provided, and just to prove to yourself how absurd it is, you should click on it. A sample: the pro military email rightfully asserts one accomplishment as: the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent. The rebuttal to this fact: “We certainly hope so, but no one is sure about that yet.” This invincible evidence seems to be enough to persuade snopes.com that the whole email is suspect and worthy of caution. Another example: Email lists another accomplishment of the US military as: “All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.” To which the best argument the detractor can come up with is:
“That’s true. But every now and then, a school gets a warning about a bomb, so many parents are afraid to send their kids to schools, and when they do so, they will be deeply worried.” Again this vague and fuzzy “counter argument” is flawless logic and enough to satisfy the good people at snopes.com that the whole email is dubious and, to be on the safe side, the hapless visitor to snopes.com should remain anti-war and believe that nothing has been accomplished in Iraq. Visit snopes.com for yourself to really laugh out loud. I simply can’t do it justice here.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp
A very similar email went around with quotes from leading Democrats attesting to their belief that Sadaam Hussein did in fact have WMD. Snopes naturally had to admit the quotes were true, but always with the caveat, quickly opined that, “some of the quotes are truncated, and context is provided for none of them.”
Please! We’ve all gotten emails like this. You use a quote to get a point across. You can’t make people on your email forward list sift 35 pages of Medeline Albright in order to put her quote “in context” Just another example of snopes’ “bend-over-backwards” policy to rescue Democrats from their own words.
Meanwhile, don’t expect an snopes investigation to proceed much further, snopes is busy crafting explanations for Kerry’s $25 million worth of real estate which is one of the biggest whoppers this web site unashamedly pulls.

Like baptism, being a liberal cleanses you from all stain in the mind of snopes. Former KKK member Sen. Robert Byrd got just such a catharsis and gets an open mic on snopes. Email snopes was “investigating” was “Senator Robert Byrd delivered a fiery floor speech condemning President Bush's calls for military action against Iraq.” Was it true? Sure was, says snopes, which then proceeds to reproduce the whole speech (for the 9 people in America who want to read it). Instead of a caveat, such as ALL conservative emails get as a matter of course from Snopes, snopes can’t contain itself and adds it’s own 2 cents, “[Byrd’s] eloquence in putting forth his opinions and arguments on this issue has captivated many like-minded members of the anti-war movement.” I see a hyperlink to MotherJones.com coming any day now.

Many emails are forwards from soldiers, judges, or military officers who are, or were, in Iraq. They all have the individual’s name, hometown etc. in the email. Sue enough, snopes investigates and finds out the person exists and the email is true, but, never quite happy, snopes adds the disclaimer: “although true, the email resembles another email sent by someone else” etc. The reader is left to conclude that plagiarism or some form of falsification has occurred. Nonsense. With thousands of our servicemen and civilians in Iraq, many are bound to witness the same events or accomplishments and report on them individually. Snopes needs a basic course on hermeneutics.




In AGOSTON v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
340 U.S. 844 Oct 09, 1950

“Denial by Supreme Court of a writ of certiorari merely means that as a matter of sound judicial discretion fewer than four members of the court deemed it desirable to review a decision of a lower court and such denial imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.”

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