Abraham Lincoln
His hand and pen;
He will be good but
God knows when.
His hand and pen;
He will be good but
God knows when.
-- A. Lincoln, age 16
Reading the 'Comments' section of the New York Times'
150th anniversary coverage of the Civil War today, I
came across a few dissenting voices. Someone felt
every effort should have been made to entice southern
secessionist states to return to the Union, as opposed
to Lincoln using immediate military force. Another
writer felt the President was a military incompetent.
Subsequent commenters noted how ill-informed these
views were.
Which brings up the question: what's to be said when
people are obviously wrong? There's no great glory in
showing others the error of their ways--in fact, it can
sometimes be counter-productive. Ideally, then, the
ignorant are best ignored and allowed to make their
way around, and effectively leave behind their mess.
But what about ignorance that bites? I also read today
at the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog
that Republican leaders and their supporters in the press
seized on testimony before Congress which pointed to
"a reduction of 800,000 workers" by the year 2021
owing to the implementation of Health Care Reform.
Unfortunately, the howlers who sent this factoid ricocheting
around the internet didn't care about the context. When
one operates on a 'by any means necessary' basis, there
are no principles of even-handedness and dispassionate
inquiry to be lost; all is consumed in a flame-throwing
warfare of destruction. So, the fact that the 'reduction'
of 800,000 workers referenced older workers who feel they
can't retire, since they would lose their health care benefits,
was twisted into yet another unemployment statistic. When
in fact, if older workers feel they can retire without worry,
this will free up 800,000 jobs for younger workers; precisely
the opposite conclusion.
Are such gaffes to be ignored?
