Rumors of Wars, Depression, and Tyranny - How Do We Stop Them From Taking Democracy Down
An email that went around the Internet since 2001 described George Bush Jr's intellect in comparison with other Presidents, giving him the lowest IQ on the list.
It is quoted as having come from the Lovenstein Institute, which is described as an intellectual think tank in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Those who didn't like Bush and his policies, and even those who sat on the proverbial fence, quoted this article and continued to circulate it.
It is one of a number of hoaxes and spins that can come from the Internet-and elsewhere.
It demonstrates how important it is to check facts before passing along information which may be false and our tendency to do so if the information supports our own beliefs.
There were plenty of people, from the left, right and in-between who had voiced opinions about the potential Presidency of George Bush Jr at the time the Lovenstein article was written.
I believe many of these opinions and "facts" at the time came from the bias of political beliefs perhaps, because Bush's language, educational attainments, business background and all were not significant or lengthy.
What we knew was his performance as a Governor, his educational ranking, and what he believed was important to him because we had his direct words repeated over and over in front of cameras.
His verbal language, his writing and his behavior was, and is, of a man who is neither angel nor devil, but an ordinary man, oriented towards what is going on about him, who doesn't and didn't probe deeply, doesn't prize intellectual pursuits nor think deeply about what goes on around him and goes with his gut and says so.
He also doesn't like to admit mistakes, and says he doesn't, even when he keeps on making them.
But that is how we all behave, at one time or another, with each other.
This ordinary man has certain flaws, and the question is if they are of the nature to be acceptable in a President at this time in our history.
Like all of us - including this writer - we fall prey to falsehoods.
Before we quote them to our children we should check the sources rather than just believe because something sounds good or right, because false ideas are sometimes cloaked with enough truths to disguise them well.
We are at war because our President likely truly believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Now we don't trust him when he says that the country will get out of its economic fix because of the bail out and the Federal Government stepping in to shore up the debt.
President Bush continues his behavior of assuring us just like he did after 9/11, but we don't believe him anymore.
Still we want to believe in something.
The fact is we should all do better checking than we have done about anything we're told that in any way is a serious deviation from the ordinary.
That means before believing Obama is responsible for an potential evil that is to come in the future if elected, think carefully and see if his record and responsible hard sources, that is documents that are authenticated relative to his practice and his life, to determine whether something is true or not.
The moral of my story is that what we do and say comes from our political and social bias and experience and that before we believe just anything, even from our government, we should check facts and read sources.
We are at war in Iraq part because people trusted and didn't investigate the facts in the detail needed before the tremendous lives lost and money spent for war.
There were too many people unwilling to step up and do what was right in the first place.
It is now too dangerous within our country to believe just because something sounds good and agrees with our biases.
That has separated us into extreme political camps between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden for Vice President and John McCain and Barack Obama for President from which there may be no viable escape.
That escape from the future of continuing to do the wrong thing rests with all of us.
That means look before leaping (remember that old saying?) and check the facts before jumping off the precipice yourself onto some hard rock and ending up becoming part of the earth before your time.
It is quoted as having come from the Lovenstein Institute, which is described as an intellectual think tank in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Those who didn't like Bush and his policies, and even those who sat on the proverbial fence, quoted this article and continued to circulate it.
It is one of a number of hoaxes and spins that can come from the Internet-and elsewhere.
It demonstrates how important it is to check facts before passing along information which may be false and our tendency to do so if the information supports our own beliefs.
There were plenty of people, from the left, right and in-between who had voiced opinions about the potential Presidency of George Bush Jr at the time the Lovenstein article was written.
I believe many of these opinions and "facts" at the time came from the bias of political beliefs perhaps, because Bush's language, educational attainments, business background and all were not significant or lengthy.
What we knew was his performance as a Governor, his educational ranking, and what he believed was important to him because we had his direct words repeated over and over in front of cameras.
His verbal language, his writing and his behavior was, and is, of a man who is neither angel nor devil, but an ordinary man, oriented towards what is going on about him, who doesn't and didn't probe deeply, doesn't prize intellectual pursuits nor think deeply about what goes on around him and goes with his gut and says so.
He also doesn't like to admit mistakes, and says he doesn't, even when he keeps on making them.
But that is how we all behave, at one time or another, with each other.
This ordinary man has certain flaws, and the question is if they are of the nature to be acceptable in a President at this time in our history.
Like all of us - including this writer - we fall prey to falsehoods.
Before we quote them to our children we should check the sources rather than just believe because something sounds good or right, because false ideas are sometimes cloaked with enough truths to disguise them well.
We are at war because our President likely truly believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Now we don't trust him when he says that the country will get out of its economic fix because of the bail out and the Federal Government stepping in to shore up the debt.
President Bush continues his behavior of assuring us just like he did after 9/11, but we don't believe him anymore.
Still we want to believe in something.
The fact is we should all do better checking than we have done about anything we're told that in any way is a serious deviation from the ordinary.
That means before believing Obama is responsible for an potential evil that is to come in the future if elected, think carefully and see if his record and responsible hard sources, that is documents that are authenticated relative to his practice and his life, to determine whether something is true or not.
The moral of my story is that what we do and say comes from our political and social bias and experience and that before we believe just anything, even from our government, we should check facts and read sources.
We are at war in Iraq part because people trusted and didn't investigate the facts in the detail needed before the tremendous lives lost and money spent for war.
There were too many people unwilling to step up and do what was right in the first place.
It is now too dangerous within our country to believe just because something sounds good and agrees with our biases.
That has separated us into extreme political camps between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden for Vice President and John McCain and Barack Obama for President from which there may be no viable escape.
That escape from the future of continuing to do the wrong thing rests with all of us.
That means look before leaping (remember that old saying?) and check the facts before jumping off the precipice yourself onto some hard rock and ending up becoming part of the earth before your time.
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