Snopes.com is Good. Critical Thinking Helps

I’m worried about the good people of this country and our future. Here’s why: I regularly get emails with patently false information. These days it’s usually about some grave indiscretion committed by President Obama but sometimes it’s an editorial that Andy Rooney never wrote not to mention said, on 60 Minutes.
This morning I got one about the tragic shootings that happened in Fort Hood, Texas last year. Supposedly, when George and Laura Bush heard about the shootings they jumped in the car, unescorted, and drove to the Fort. When they got there, former President Bush asked for directions and was again offered an escort whereupon he told base officials to shut up and drove on to the hospital. The story went on to say that the White House asked the former President to leave. The story goes on to say that President Obama “merely held a photo session” in a gym at Fort Hood.
Okay, I understand a lot of people in this country are unhappy with the current occupant of the White House. Some may have excellent reasons to be unhappy. The election next week will probably hammer home the point. That’s not enough for some of us though. There is no shortage of people that will gladly spread misinformation about Obama and his administration. Certainly in my lifetime there is nothing new about that. Anyone who lived through Watergate understands that evil lurks in the hearts of many people. What frightens me is that there are so many people who are so unhappy with the current state of affairs that they will believe anything that supports their world view. And they are willing to blithely spread hideous stories which today are point and click easy to do. Whatever happened to critical thinking?
I am grateful for Snopes.com. It’s so easy to check stories that don’t sound right and you know what? My instincts are often right. And I am just an average guy with a tendency to be skeptical about what I read. Does anybody else think a little skepticism is healthy? Consider if you will a few points about the Ft. Hood story.
We live in an unstable world. We are forced to be very security conscious. Former Presidents have access to enormous amounts of sensitive information. What are the chances that President Bush, not once but twice, fails to take proper security measures? The reason we protect former Presidents is to ensure we don’t have an international incident that could result in the deaths of many. Think George Bush knows that? By the way, would George Bush tell a man or woman in uniform that offered to help to shut up?
In a highly politicized arena, knowing that former President Bush had been on the military base visiting wounded soldiers, is there any chance that President Obama would “merely hold a photo session?” The guy won an extremely hard fought primary and general election because he exercised formidable political skills.
The truth is that I didn’t really need to check snopes.com to see that the story being sent around was false. I firmly believe that most of us would see that. Common sense tells us that the heart of the story is fabricated. Yet, too many people won’t see that. Why do so many of us choose to major in minor things? We get lathered up over whether a mosque should be built near ground zero while we ignore the fact that educators in this country aren’t getting the job done. America’s students rank 21st in science and 25th in math compared with students around the world. Teachers need to do a better job and so do parents. The mosque issue may be important but where is the outrage over the state of education?
In the days before cyberspace, newspapers and even TV journalists behaved responsibly. They wouldn’t think of publishing something like the Bush visits FT. Hood story. Ethics, moral and business, forced them to walk the straight and narrow. Advertisers would not have stood for malicious propaganda. Readers may not have agreed with certain points of view but they could rest assured that the essential facts of any story were accurate. The Internet changed all that. Everybody can play now and it’s more or less a risk free game. Web sites, blogs and email are a demagogue’s dream. Unless otherwise bright people learn to accept the truth that just because it’s “in print” doesn’t mean it’s true, our liberty is at risk.

Copyright Len Serafino, 2010. All rights reserved.