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Reflections on the Reliably Incurious, Willfully Ignorant, and Just Plain Evil
Well, actually, I suspect that last one has been sufficiently reflected upon in two of my more recent posts: Or, the FBI Is Lying and Death of a High Trust Society: The ‘Circling the Drain’ Edition. It is becoming undeniably clear that we have national “law enforcement” entities that are, at best, under the control of one of the political parties…the alternative is that they have gone rogue. That they don’t appear at all interested in promoting an unquestionably clean public image and, in fact, seem to be at least passive-aggressively promoting a secretive fear campaign against political enemies is even more chilling.
<< CRICKETS >>
Working backward through my title list, a post elsewhere titled “Who decides?” (via Instapundit) a few days ago got me thinking of those willfully ignorant among us. The discussion started around this:
NEW – Biden’s new “disinformation” czar wants “trustworthy verified people” like her to be able to “add context” to other people’s tweets.
To which the author noted:
Who decides who is trustworthy enough to provide context on a tweet? …
Everyone likely has people they trust to make those determinations. The problem is that not everyone trusts the same people. While Nina Jankowicz may, for example, trust CNN or CBS News, I don’t. I don’t generally find them particularly trustworthy.
There are other news sources I personally favor, but I’m sure Jankowicz disagrees.
So who gets to decide?
The problem here is that it is too easy to set this up as an honest disagreement between sources and world views. The bifurcation of news and truths since “Trump” is sad fiction. The intellectual contortionism it takes to believe almost anything as “reported” by the CNN/MSNBC side of things is an insult to thinking third-graders everywhere. (I saw Chuck Todd interviewed on a morning show yesterday or the day before almost choke on his ridiculous planted talking point that the Saudis were to blame for our high prices at the pump. Almost felt sad for that pathetic little man. But I digress.)
Much like when one of our locals claimed in a total vacuum of supporting information that “I have not found Powerline to be a reliable source of information…”, I fully reject that Nina Jankowicz, or anyone she is likely to choose to assist her, is capable [of] intellectually honesty…by all indications, she is unwilling and/or unable to identify the truth and pass it on to her subjects except by the happy (and rare) accident that some minor detail lines up with the current progressive narrative. In all other cases, she and her ilk are completely and reliably incurious. Worse, and to no one’s surprise here, they are prone to – not “add context” but – actively and demonstrably lie about the exact issues they claim to be czar-ing the disinformation out of.
My fun example today comes from none other than Powerline:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1522434838326034433
… pointing out that Ilhan Omar married her brother on paper to ease his immigration [issues is a form] of “Russian disinformation.”
For those interested in the longer story, with a special thanks to Flicker for playing along last August, I will point you to the rather substantial and well-reasoned non-Russian-disinformation behind the “married her brother” story, but here I do enjoy the simple demonstration of just how pathetic the reliable incuriosity of media outlets can be:
Since August 2016 we have reported voluminous — I would say conclusive — direct and circumstantial evidence that Omar married her brother. My Somali friends who know the parties have confirmed it several times over. When the Star Tribune assigned two excellent reporters to review the evidence in its June 2019 story, they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence to support Omar’s indirect denial (i.e., imputation of bigotry to the paper for pursuing the story).
[Emphasis added]
But, hey, Nina knows best. Right?
I will end with the closing sentiments from the Tilting at Windmills link reference above:
At the heart of all of this, we have to remember that if we’re going to start policing thought, allowing certain actions by the right people and not those same actions by the wrong sort, someone had to be the arbiter of which is which.
It’s easy to be fine with that when you’re convinced you and yours will always be in charge, but I wouldn’t count on it always being that way, which is why these ideas should be universally terrifying.
The fact that one side is openly proposing them, however, is another matter entirely.
[Emphasis added]
We are already feeling the effects of the reliably incurious, willfully ignorant, and just plain evil like The Iron Heel they are…and “one side is openly proposing” even more. (Well, one side plus some help. Thanks, Liz.) When does the chill become too much?
Into the abyss…
Published in General
Well said
There’s already a way to “add context” to other people’s tweets. One can either reply to the tweet with the “context” or quote tweet it. There’s no reason to allow others to “edit” the tweet.
I wonder if Nina the Lunatic would have labeled it disinformation if she had heard a reporter on KCBS tease an upcoming story this morning with Experts Predict Nationwide Demonstrations if the Supreme Court Makes Abortion Illegal.
I keep thinking that Nina won some contest like “Who can be the most off-putting” to be appointed to her position. She comes across, to me at least, as a very poor SNL satire.
On the pure nuts side, who in the world would be so ignorant, out-of-touch, and unaware to think that even if people thought a Ministry of Truth sounded like a good idea, putting a rabid partisan hack like Jancowicz, with a history of lies, distortions, misdirections, and other dishonesty, in charge of the Ministry of Truth would be viewed favorably by much of the U.S. population? Additional evidence that the Biden Administration is populated with ignorant incompetents.
Or is this whole operation a subterfuge by an insider trying to bring down the Biden Administration?
And, even if you’re going to take the concept seriously, there are sources I would consider reliable on some subjects but not others. So you can’t just say “this is a reliable source” and have that applicable to all subjects. Reliable sources on economics are going to be different from reliable sources on theology. Reliable sources on physics are going to be different from the reliable sources on medicine. No one source or set of sources can be considered reliable arbiters of all subjects.
I feel like they put her there to sacrifice, and replace her with someone slightly less demonic and insane, in order to consolidate and establish the position.
Or replace her with someone more demonic and insane, cuz that’s the prevailing trend.
Reminds me of those 2020 campaign yard signs for Biden: “A uniter, not a divider.”
NOTICE: This Member post has been promoted to the Main Feed. Content may have been edited / corrected from the original without attribution by Ricochet.
Also, since I am admittedly lazy and only report the infuriating systemic issue of jacked-up video links when promoted to the Main Feed through the “flag” link giving me about a 50-50 chance that it will ever be fixed in the OP, here is the video that you do not see there:
(Somewhere along the line it seems we – or I – stopped getting notifications about promotions. For what it’s worth, that is/was an important feature to at least one of us.)
This tweet is obviously spreading disinformation, so its accidental omission was for the general good.
Even the people inside don’t know what they don’t know-
Senator Kennedy in Mayorkas hearing: ‘When the Department picked her, did it know that she had said that Mr. Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russia disinformation?’
‘I was not aware of that,’ the secretary responded.’
Senator Kennedy: ‘When the Department picked Ms. Jankowicz did it know that she had vouched for the veracity of the Steele Dossier?’
‘I was not aware of that fact,’ he said.
So they don’t even know the facts of their own ‘facts’…. and they are are going to ‘Minster Truth’ to the rest of America?
SIDE NOTE (A little something worth documenting under this heading but appropriately buried here because he really is just a little man with a little mind.):
There has admittedly been a lot of aggressive and irreverent commentary directed at him over six or more years…mostly conjured up due to dense intellectual inconsistency and dishonesty on his part. However, after giving it an honest try myself, I watched as many, many others (mostly new members) approached him in good faith under the belief that his posted positions were honest, informed, and similarly in good faith. Nothing worked. His errors have been repeatedly and patiently explained and the obvious sources he used to inform those erroneous positions have been impeached over and over and over again. He has always rejected the obvious truth.
Then, today, he pops on to our little neighborhood here with…I paraphrase: “Hey, I read a book. It turns out that my mind had been marinated in falsehoods by MSNBC and the Mueller investigation was a search for not all that much, and was a general waste of time and money. I guess I have been wrong all along.”
It turns out the the truth has always been crystal clear to all willing to see but those others…the ones more comfortable with living within the lie until such a time as it is convenient to try to slip back into thinking world…simply refused to acknowledge it. Amazing how easy they think it will be…and probably will be…to be welcomed back into their selected polite social circles. But on the grander scale – beyond just a tiny back page commenting community – just think how much damage was done and how much time and potential was wasted by a movement executed and supported by the reliably incurious, willfully ignorant, and just plain evil on many levels of American society.
Disgusting. My contempt is total…and fully intact.
The information has to come from the right source in the minds of a lot of people. I had a coworker who refused to believe what I told him from the notes I had taken listening to a vice president talk. He simply would not accept it. Three months later, he heard it from a source he trusted, and that was that. The source he trusted was a mid level manager of no particular note. As someone recently said, go figure.
Not sure who you’re talking about, but … you actually read his posts?
That seems a reasonable explanation; how else does it make sense?