Don’t Drink the Kool Aid

Don’t Drink the Koolaid

The average, mostly apolitical American has been fed a continuing gruel of skewed news, lies and politically “correct” views; to the point that rank falsehoods have been imbued with the mantle of truths and have become embedded in our culture.  

The process is insidious.  If major network news, CNN, the New York Times et al say it’s so, it must be so.  If our national leadership continues to point to what they consider problems and avoid addressing others, their views must be guiding principles, must they not?  In time we drink the Koolaid and are led down this skewed (and crooked) path.

This article discusses only two such untruths – the falsehood of “assault rifles”, and the falsehood of disproportionate use of firearms by police against black men.

Volumes have written about second amendment rights, but out of the rhetoric comes the bugaboo of the AR-15 as a monstrous “assault rifle” and as a tool of massive destruction.  In actual fact, the AR-15 is a popular one-shot-at-time (semi-automatic) civilian rifle.  Its’ very ubiquity and popularity have resulted in its’ use in several high profile shooting incidents.  Inaccurate press reporting and inept legislators have made the AR-15 into a false “killing machine” in the popular view.  I’ve blogged extensively on this topic and reference my blog here.    http://raygruszecki.blogspot.com/. Choose the blog on the Truth about “Assault Weapons”

With all of the recent news about demonstrations and riots by “Black Lives Matter”, the average viewer and reader would think that a disproportionate number of black men are killed by white policemen in the U.S.  Statistics simply do not bear this out.  The number of black men killed by police is proportionally the same as for Caucasians and Hispanics.  It seems that the only thing out of proportion is the increased releases of smart phone videos out of the black community to an avid press corps.  Both long term statistics and recent, focused studies support the above conclusion.  An in depth Harvard study just published posits “On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings–we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account”  Full Harvard Study.   New York Times Report       More extensive FBI Data.  

The Harvard study points out that while young black men are more likely to be stopped and hassled than young white men, black men are not disproportionately shot by police, thereby dispelling the whole “Black Lives Matter” argument. Note how the New York Times article bends the rhetoric a little bit in the direction of supporting the BLM movement.

As far as the hassling of young black men is concerned, it is to be remembered that many of these police stops are in high crime urban settings, which leads to increased suspicion.  One of the points made in the NYT article is surprise that more police shootings don’t take place in these volatile environments.

The above two examples illustrate how watching “normal” TV news and reading “normal” mainstream newspapers can instill a false view of the world.  What is the answer?  To my view it is not to watch only Fox News and read only the Wall Street Journal as counterbalance to liberal-leaning news.  This would result in an equally biased opposite view of the world.  All the above being the case, where do we get balanced and unbiased news?  I don’t think that such is entirely possible, but after long experience, three sources come to mind that are pretty reasonably balanced on most issues concerning the U.S.  These are The Telegraph newspaper out of the U.K., the Thomson Reuters news agency, and the Pew Research group.