Home   >   News   >   Current Affairs   >   Facts first…. Kim later

Facts first…. Kim later

By on March 31, 2012

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court hearings, the Health Care Reform Act is finally getting the examination it should have received when it was first debated. This morning Chris Hayes on his weekly Up cable program devoted time to examining the provisions of the Act with several people of differing opinions who have first hand experience. It occurred to me that in this era of opinion before fact, very little air time has been devoted to education on this subject. Yes, there have been a few well-intentioned, indeed well-constructed, specials about health care and reform but they are invariably scheduled where they will not compete with American Idol, Jersey Shore or a play-off game.

Trouble is, this is exactly the audience that needs to be educated about health care reform for its own benefit. President Obama announced when the bill passed that the public would grow to know it and like the various provisions. Polling shows this has not happened. The president over-estimated the intellectual curiosity of the public, which is still very much in the dark. The public would seem to have more interest in who won the Mega-Lottery last night. The provisions that have taken effect so far have affected a small slice of the public. The provisions that impact quality and will hopefully stem the rising tide of cost will not be apparent until 2014. The identity of the lottery winner is unlikely to affect that.

My hat is off to Chris Hayes who represents the inquiring minds of a younger generation that knows that politics has consequences. Trouble is that, again, I would guess that few but the faithful tuned in to see his analysis. In this day of instant communication, how can it be that those who lived in 1776 were more tuned in to events happening around them than Americans today. Is it because there was no Desperate Housewives of Nieuw Amsterdam to distract the colonies back then? No Minueting with the Stars? No Fife and Drum version of American Idol going into colonial homes every night? No Star or National Tattler to titillate tidewater shoppers at the Farmers’ Market with gossip about the Washingtons or The Secret Life at Monticello. No PACs trying to convince early Americans that The Boston Tea Party was a ploy concocted by Liberal Native Americans, Militant Anti-Federalists or ‘Femi-Quakers’ like Betsy Ross. 

Makes you kind of nostalgic doesn’t it? For a time when there was no indoor plumbing, no public health measures, and no remedy for most disease! How do you explain this? Communications do matter, as the Obama Administration is learning. But what about the folks at home around the Home Shopping Network or watching reruns of Sex and the City? Have they learned this lesson? Are they even paying attention? We can forgive them for turning away when commercial time is an endless string of political propaganda. But isn’t it time to gather the facts? Isn’t it time to refocus on the issues that really will impact daily life, just as the founding colonialists were able to do. Facts first, opinions later, Kim Kardashian and Tim Tebow much, much later.

Tom Godfrey

About Tom Godfrey

2 comments on “Facts first…. Kim later”

  1. KrikorD on said:

    Very well said Tom. I was having a friendly discussion with some friends over dinner yesterday. We broached the topic of politics, considered taboo in conversations with friends. We got onto Obamacare and I frequently found myself stopping the conversation to clarify hysteria being stated as fact. Sometimes the questions where rhetorical and there really was no exchange of ideas, but just statements of subjective opinion. This I think is representative of conversations between various ideologies today. The goal is not to vet out the subject matter and find the truth. The objective seems more like a pre-teen pouting their emotional and emphatic feelings under the pretext of factual discussion. When I saw debate class as a requirement in college, I could not understand what in the world a pre-med was going to do with debate class or public speaking. I reluctantly, and now thankfully, took part in competitions for debate and public speaking and am better for it. You had to have facts to back-up your statements. You could not just arbitrarily make up stuff and state it as fact. It was considered poor form. Every student should be required to take this class and remember it.

    Reply ↓
    • TGodfrey on said:

      Thanks for this. Yes there is a certain amount of hysteria in current conversations on topics touching politics, and much too much emotionality. Intelligent people do want facts to back up assertions. They want to be able to arrive at the same conclusion themselves. That is why so many arguments fail. Brow beating the other party, even into temporary silence, does not resolve the matter. There is no substitute for civil dialogue. That is what changes peoples minds, not a full frontal assault with a lot of propaganda. Not massive intimidation. People move their opinions if they think the facts justify it. Health care affects so many people in some many ways that the current strategy of turning Obama-care into a dirty word is doomed to fail sooner or later.
      We need to find our way back to civil discourse, freed of political cant. Right now we are not on course for that to happen. Responsible voters will need to demand it.

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

HTML tags are not allowed.