On Burden of Proof, Reasoning Skills and Fake Thinkers Hating on Fake News

by Jason John Bartholomew

There has been, on rare occasion (at least once), where someone, actually two someones in tandem, managed to present a case for their point-of-view that was well enough constructed so as to make me reverse my opinion on an issue. There had, up until then, been many, mostly conspiracy-prone tweakers, who had tried for years to convince me that 9/11 was an inside job. I laughed in their faces when they could defend none of their arguments to the level necessary to be labeled critical thought. It wasn’t until I met two men — very bright men far smarter than myself — who coincidentally were visiting a friend on the same evening as I was, that I was presented with a formidable case with real scientific data that held up to scrutiny that I begin to see there was cause for real skepticism of the official story about that pivotal September day when the USA was irrevocably changed for the worse.

Now mind you, I’ve always been aware that our government was capable of, really, anything. I’d been paying attention to them for a while, from well before 9/11, so I wasn’t in the throes of some blind trust for the sanctity of the federal government. I jusr hadn’t heard a convncing case and just because a party is capable of an autrocity, doesn’t mean they are the ones responsible for its occurrence. It helped that these gentlemen were able to answer any question I threw at them, and if I have any real talent at all it’s probably a gift for questions, and they were undaunted by my skepticism. On the contrary, they seem to welcome it and were eager to overcome it. It also helped that they were both engineers and that one of them was a high ranking engineer at Boeing.

The point of all of this is to say A). I’m not quite as stubborn as people say. I’m absolutely swayable if you bring your A-game. But I don’t hold any ideas, least I try very hard not to, that I haven’t thought thru myself, so people really need to make their case to move me. Otherwise, yeah, I’m not really listening or taking you very seriously. So there’s that, but also B). It really matters to have a case. If you want to be persuasive but are finding that you’re not being so, you might want to step up your critical thinking, because some of us are just not swayed by conspiracy theories posted to YouTube by dubious “independent” news organizations we’ve never heard of and we cannot verify. Some of the most embarrassing critical thinking I’ve seen done has been by so-called progressive independent news organizations that enjoy mainstream success. In fact, I am regularly embarrassed by what passes for critical thinking among the mainstream liberal and so-called progressive base.

You can say what you like about media and the rise of fake news, but fake news only ever became a thing because the American people are so inept at spotting fallacy. That’s why I am perfectly content to still think of The New York Times as the official paper of record in this country and an entirely valid source that you can guarantee will print a retraction the moment it becomes evident that they got the story wrong. All corporate media is not bad, but I’ll go out on a limb here and say that all cable news is bad. The whole model of cable news is toxic and a barrier to seeking fact-based truth. I am of the opinion people who seriously want to get to the truth read their news. An hour of reading the New York Times or the Guardian will give me a much clearer view of the world than the same hour spent with the hysterical speculation on MSNBC, Fox or CNN. Written news takes it’s time to get the story correct and offers more real in-depth analysis. Newspapers traditionally does not speculate.

There was a time in this country when being a newsman was an honourable profession, being the anchor on the evening news was an honorable and respected role, and when owning a newspaper, whether that was as a wealthy family or as a division of a corporation, was a symbol of true national pride and out of duty and honour these families and corporations took a very hands off approach to what the news department did, because they took pride in the fact that we have freedom of speech and freedom of press. These gentlemen, because they were mostly gentleman, put their reputations, their integrity and their honor on the line in order to get the story right for the American people. Begin a newsman in this country used to be an honorable profession and those who practiced it took it very seriously. This is before there were “journalists.” Anyone can be a journalist. But not everyone can be a newsman. (I believe even a news lady is called a news man and I don’t think they flinch at that. I think it’s a matter of knowing that they’re holding their own with the boys in a profession that requires balls whether your man or a woman. I might be mistaken but I doubt it.) It is lamentable such a time does not seem to exist anymore to a national pride level. But then honor and integrity and national pride in our Free Press among the citizenry also does not seem to exist anymore. And that’s saddening.

Nowadays people go out of their way to prove America was never great and never did anything great, in fact, that we have never done anything right at all. I find that to be cynical and disgusting. We certainly have never been the fulfillment of all we could have been as laid out in the vision our forefathers enshrined in those founding documents, but this idea that America has been evil and rotten to the core from the very beginning is false and bitter and cynical and, dare I say, unpatriotic. I’m not one who generally promotes patriotism of any brand. But without national pride you get a nation that acts without pride. Also sad.

Almost as sad as an adult trying to convince another adult of anything and having to resort to the conspiracy theorists motto… “No evidence must be evidence of something.” Because that just makes you look like a fucking fool.

I don’t say that really as an insult; I know some bright young men who have been colossally failed by their education system to the extent that they do not even know in a situation where people are making opposing cases that it is the person who is making the affirmative statement, i.e. that something is so, who has the burden of proof. In the case above, I was under no obligation to prove that 9/11 had not been an inside job… Anyone who said that it was an inside job was under the obligation to prove that positive assertion was the truth. That’s how burden of proof approve works. If you make an outragesous claim, you have to prove the validity of the outrages claim. It’s noone’s obligation to prove that your outrages claim is false.

I’m a little too old to brag about my glory days, but I was a three-time state champion in debate in high school. Had I not been sent away my senior year because of my insistence on speaking truth to power in my parent’s home, I’m certain I could have made that a four time champion. Truth is debate in high school set the course for my entire life. So when I am king, debate will be taught in school as as a non-elective.

Making people argue both sides of an issue for a grade teachers people to emotionally detach themselves from their reasoning. Then they can use reason to formulate their beliefs as as opposed to starting with some beliefs picked up from somewhere, and then trying to cherry-pick evidence from the world at large that proves those beliefs right. Trying to be right and trying to get to the truth are two very different activities. This is not how most people approach thinking, but if we took the reasoning approach, I can promise you we would live in a much, much, much different world.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to live in a much, much, much different world.

jason john bartholomew
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