The blogsphere and more

There's been a good bit of discussion of late about the failings of the blogosphere - and by that, I'm referring specifically to the political blogosphere. The obvious problem is that any half-wit with a keyboard and an internet connection can get a blog in about 2.5 minutes and spew out their rants to the world. There's nothing truly new to this phenomenon, it's just now a mass market, any old redneck down the street, kind of experience. We are constantly warned in class not to rely on "internet" sources (a true misnomer if there ever was one since all media is now online in some capacity) because it is not "peer reviewed", i.e. said bilious blowhards write boorish boffery and someone out there in the world believes them.

This all comes to mind on this gloriously London-type morning (muggy, gray, warm) because of a blog that was forwarded to me over the evening. Apparently this blog is significant enough to receive a mention on a radio program, so I can only imagine the legions of conservative cohorts and radically religious hackola's that are frothing at the mouth at La Shawn's absurdly creative and dramatic puffery. My general impression of this site was that the author guy actually thinks that George Bush is too liberal - which means, of course, the blog should only appeal to less than 5% of the US population - the same 5% that got W back in the White House. But it gets worse. Among the intellectual misadventures (everything in parentheses is my addition):

- Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are receiving luxury meals (to go with inhumane treatment)
- Schiavo wasn't on life support (what exactly, then, was that whole feeding tube thing?)
- There are legions of would be terrorists hiding amongst our midst ready to strike (where are the convictions then?)
- Americans are "being taxed to death taking care of deadbeats and criminals" (come to the UK or the EU, you'll see high taxes)
- Aid to Africa, or debt relief, is only going to help "brutal dictators" (a racist view, see The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs; absurdly off target - aid is targeted to nations with "good governance"; and, it's not like AIDS/HIV assistance is really gonna help them "dictators", now is it?)
- Hispanics and blacks have a penchant to be "gangbangers" and should all be deported (never mind the vast majority are US citizens)
- The New Deal was socialist (I guess all those child labor laws should be rolled back as well?)
- Welfare encourages black women to have babies (more whites are on welfare than blacks, welfare/AFDC doesn't pay enough for that to be true, most pregnancies are by teenagers and are thus unplanned)
- Hate crime laws are "insane" (it's ironic when GOPers criticize laws that increase penalties for crime)
- The New York Times engages in "historical revisionism" (a one-off against the most respected newspaper in the US, if not the world)
- Prosecuting US military personel for "mistakes" on the battlefield is the cause of low recruitment (never mind the risk of getting called up from "reserve" status to full-time deployment or the risk of getting shot or blown up by a "terrorist" in Iraq)
- The US hasn't "tortured" any combatants (I guess the author missed that whole Abu Ghraib thing not to mention even a brief review of what constitutes "torture" under international law")
- America is overrun by illegal aliens which is bankrupting hospitals and schools (bankrupt is too strong, but there are high costs, so I'll let this one slide, even though I think it's a worthy expenditure)

I don't care that La Shawn is black. I don't care much about La Shawn at all. What I care about is that there are thousands of people reading these sophmoric ramblings and probably aren't second guessing at all. Repeat that across hundreds (thousands?) of blogs and you have the makings for an extremely uninformed public that thinks they are informed.

When I prepare political postings for this blog, I come at them from a particular position that is obvious. But I do not merely repeat the bombast and hyperbole that is drowning out the voices of those who actually are well researched and informed. Instead, I try to do my best to be objective, to use facts to support my positions, and to reference those facts where possible. In the end, there's a right way, a wrong way, and La Shawn's way.

Anyway, as I'm rather bothered by this whole thing, I'll probably devote more of this space to these topics in the future. I have several posts that are in process where I'm making some rather big arguments that may be a stretch, so those will come first (whenever I finish them). But sometime in the future, I'll tackle some of these debates (especially the foreign aid one) in what I hope will be an authentic effort.