Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Comparative Deception

I just love the way that Fox News tends to nourish those little pet stories (i.e., stories that either reinforce or are MADE to reinforce that conservative agenda they have) of theirs. The latest one of these stories is the one that states how federal employees currently owe over three billion dollars in back taxes. Typical Fox, in other words. And, no, folks, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the motivation here. The federal government is just plain flat-out evil. And, yes, so, too, is it bad/inefficient. I mean, just look at the frigging evidence, they say..........................................................................................Of course, what Fox and this story fail to report is just how statistically significant (or not) these particular numbers are (or aren't). They don't, for example, compare this delinquency rate to the overall population of taxpayers, or even to other industries. Three billion dollars (while admittedly a truck-load of money) may or may not be any more egregious (percentage-wise) than people paying taxes in the private sector. We clearly need additional information here. Not that I'd ever expect Fox News to provide that information, of course.......................................................................................P.S. Please, don't get me wrong here. I'm not exactly a huge fan of the federal government, either. I'm certainly not brimming with confidence that an expansion of it will fix everything (as apparently some of the Democrats are). But, really, when you put forth an argument against the government (as Fox News clearly was doing here), it has to be an argument that means something. You can't just keep throwing stupid crap against the wall and hope that it sticks/your gullible audience will buy it up. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Mr. Hannity.

4 comments:

Oso said...

Will,
Along the lines of what you said about Fox,Beck made a point of listing Nobel Prize winners in medical fields who were American and trumpeted how much we spent on medical research in making an anti healthcare reform pitch.
A reasonably intelligent person might point out no one is questioning our technological ability but rather the problem is access to the care and cost.

The MSM generally does this of course,Fox just seems to be more egregious though. In my observation anyway.

Commander Zaius said...

Being a liberal, although that term is now more than a little strained since the Democrat party civil war that has erupted you might think that I would take this moment to really talk trash about Fox Noise.

But all American news media is screwed up to high heaven in so many ways. Now to me Fox is more propaganda but the stuff from the other places is more than light fluff.

You watch BBC America, video feeds from the internet, or even listen to shortwave stations across the globe they stick to clear facts. But then again maybe those sources can be clearer cause they don't have any dogs in American political fights.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Fox (Beck, in particular) has turned the creation of straw-men into an art form. The example you give, Oso, is a perfect one.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I share your frustrations with the media, double b. Me, I have a tendency to watch a lot of C-Span. Their interviewers (Brian Lamb, I especially like) seem to be quite nonpartisan (none of this Olbermann, Hannity, Beck nonsense) and, yes, they also have a lot of good/amusing audience participation. As for the big 3 cable news organizations, CNN, hands down.