Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
A recent post mentioned a letter to the editor, I read in my local paper, about the US Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling made this past summer. The letter was so wrong and fact free it made me respond with a letter of my own. To my surprise (not really) the author of the original letter responded to me. Again his letter is free of any facts.
Letters to the Editor of a local newspaper was one of our first ‘comment sections’ where regular readers could share their various viewpoints tempered with moderation by the newspaper staff. Today, even with prescreening, the letter section sometimes resembles the fact free fantasizes we find in places like FOX ‘news’, news websites and Facebook. Some friends think the ignorant comments should be ignored but I think one should respond to ignorance in some cases like I did to a recent letter to the editor about the US Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling.
A gentleman had the following letter published in my local paper this past week:
In recent weeks the number of refugees running from war in Syria has swelled. Most are headed to Europe even if some countries don’t want them. The conflict is partly be tied to climate change and a civil war assisted by nations like the US and France. Besides being the human thing to do, we all bear some responsibility to help the refugees.
The refugees from Syria are a major humanitarian crisis that is butting heads with old historical bias against outsiders. Countries are taking different approaches in dealing with the influx.
One tactic that forced birth conservatives use to argue against abortion is an old refuted argument that Margaret Sanger, one of the founders of Planned Parenthood, was a racist. They use a quote out of context from a 1930s letter she wrote advocating for birth control clinics for the African-American community in the South and a quote that intentionally puts a negative light on her support of the now discredited Eugenics movement. The goal of the memes isn’t to educate about Margaret Sanger but to smear her.
The two quotes I’ve seen posted on Facebook by conservative friends of mine can be seen in the image to the right of this post.
A link to the essay ‘No, It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong’ came across my Facebook feed the other day and I fell in love with it. If I could I would have the post’s babies. Writer Jef Rouner sums up exactly how I feel when someone tries to avoid being wrong by saying ‘It’s my opinion..’. I am saving this text for the future because I will need it.