Public Discourse & Health Care

By -
I'm frustrated by the lack of real discourse in our society. Instead of talking rationally with one another, our country seems possessed with shock-value politics. Are people really interested in a conversation about facts and concepts? Or do people just want to grind their axes? I seriously wonder.

One major cause of this polarization is people's unwillingness to listen to anyone other than their favorite political junkie. Try this experiment for a week. Choose a news source you never use: read the LA Times instead of the Fresno Bee or try Fox instead of MSNBC or listen to NPR instead of Rush. Just try it for one week. And actually listen. See what the perspectives and arguments are. At the end of the week, you are free to return to your old sources. But I'd be curious to know what you think.

As a general rule, people would do well to check out facts before you hit the "forward" button. One good source is a website maintained by the St. Petersburg Times. It won a Pulitzer Prize for journalistic excellence. The site is called PolitiFact.org. They attempt to rate the truthfulness of politicians' statements and promises based upon actual evidence rather than the hype of forwarded emails. It's a very even-handed site that doesn't spare either party. I highly recommend it as a tool for people who want to try thinking for themselves (if that's even possible these days).

Here's to truth! I still believe in it.

Comments

Ashley Sides said…
I may try this in my government classes this year. I get so frustrated with hollow rhetoric that people use as a substitute for genuine thinking. I try to get my students to think for themselves, so I find myself playing devil's advocate with them a lot. If I have some dogmatic students this year like I did last year, I might challenge them to switch their perspective for a week, as you suggest. I'm also going to check out the PolitiFact site.
August 14, 2009 at 9:29 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians 4:1-7 & The Confusing Apostle Paul

By -
Image
Does Galatians 4:1-7 confuse anyone as much as it does me? After studying this for some time, I am prone to agree with the words of 2 Peter 3:16. "There are some things in [Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures." I hope I'm not one of the ignorant and unstable people. But I'm in the camp of folks who can say that Paul's writings are occasionally hard to understand. Let me clarify what I'm having a hard time clarifying. I don't really think it's difficult to understand Paul's point in Gal 4:1-7. The broader context makes it clear. Paul says that the Law of Moses is inferior to the promise previously made to Abraham. Gentile Christians, he writes, are descendants of Abraham because they share the same faith in God (3:6-7) that Abraham had (Gen 15:6). They therefore don't need to obey Jewish rules and customs. That's his point. from Anthony...
Read more

Love It or List It: We Sold Our Church Building

By -
Image
On October 8, 2023, we held our last worship service in our home of 59 years. We're moving on to a temporary location while we wait for God to reveal where our more permanent home will be. It's been a journey for which there is no solid road map, but we feel blessed by what's happening. We formed a giant circle for the final song at our longtime, northeast Fresno home. In late January, our elders announced a shock decision. We would be selling our church building and moving on. Among the elders, it was an uncontentious and unambiguous decision. They 100% believed it was in the church's best interest to put our property on the market and find a new home. Many congregations have hard choices to make about aging properties that are oversized for today's churches. Selling seemed the most desirable option to our board in our circumstances. I wrote about that decision back in January. You can read about it here . I had an inside seat to their decision-making process. As a...
Read more

In Memoriam of Larry Locke, My Father

By -
Image
My dad Larry Locke took his final breath this afternoon. He was in the comfort of his own home in Lebanon, Tennessee. It was as beautiful a spring day as Middle Tennessee can provide. Lovely breeze. Chirping birds. Blooming flowers. But Dad had been unable for weeks to notice the glory of God's created world. He was ready to go and be with the Lord forever. Over the last 2+ years, Larry had struggled with dementia and previously undiagnosed depression. A lifelong runner, he had never spent a night in the hospital prior to this sickness. The loss of his vitality was a blow to all who knew and loved him. While his first hospitalization returned him to a level close to his old self, subsequent declines and hospital stays left him a shadow of the man we knew. His time for this life would number 76 years. Larry Locke was born in 1942 in Shelbyville, Tennessee. His father, W. H. Locke, owned a small diner. His mother, Pansy Worley Locke, had done office work but as a mother was mos...
Read more