Words of Wisdom

From Doug at Mostly Words:

Chatting with a friend whose father is completely in the clutches of Fox News, and believes Donald Trump will go down in history as America's greatest President, I could only offer condolences.

My mother was at that point a few years ago, and I'm glad that she came back from the brink, recognized the insanity, and did not vote for Trump again in 2020. I'm pretty sure my brother is still Fox-zombified, but I can't verify that since I refuse to broach the subject with him again.

I almost typed "I don't know what the solution is," but I do know. It's difficult saying it, because I spent decades as a free-speech absolutist, and I don't know how you'd go about it beyond "very carefully," but the plain fact is that democracy doesn't survive if mass media and social media are allowed to lie with impunity about the facts of public discourse.

Any idiot should be free to speak any idiocies, of course. It should be illegal, though, for companies to broadcast those idiocies, unchallenged and uncorrected, to an audience of millions.

Yeah, that's a rerun—what I just said, I've said before. I'm still waiting for someone to explain that I'm wrong.