Do Your Damn Homework!

There's a lot of contentious issues being tossed around in the world of US politics right now (as always). The biggest one at the moment is health care, and that's certainly what's been getting the most press recently. I have been watching, reading, and listening about the health care debate, and I am getting pretty annoyed and angry. This has nothing to do with my views on the actual issue (I am in favor of a more socialized version of health care, but am undecided as to whether a program styled after the Canadian single-payer system, the British NHS, or, as I learned about earlier today, the Dutch government-mandated bare minimum coverage from private insurers would be best for us to adopt) and everything to do with the nature of the debate taking place.

I think it's great when people get angry and impassioned about politics. This is our country and our lives, we should be impassioned about it. And regardless of your political views, there's been plenty in the past decade or so to be angry about. So if you feel compelled to speak with passion about one of the issues on the table, such as health care, great! However (here comes the title of this post), do your damn homework first. I am sick and tired of hearing people full of passion but lacking any sort of knowledge on the topic. Death panels? The NHS would've killed Stephen Hawking? Are you people shitting me? There's two possible explanations for the ridiculous, juvenile, and counter-productive level of debate going on about health care recently that I can think of.

First, it is possible that a large number of American citizens are idiots, or crazy, or crazy idiots. Certainly there's a lot of cynics or comics playing the cynic out there who have claimed this one for years (probably as long as there's been American citizens, and before that about citizens of any and all nations, states, nation-states, tribes, clans, etc.). So this theory would roughly go that stupid ideas and claims are being spontaneously generated in the vacuum-like minds of stupid people. It's tempting to think this way because it removes all blame from the process. "Oh, people will be people, stupidity is part of the deal, let's accept it." I call bullshit on this explanation.

The second, more probable option, is that a relative few intelligent, powerful, and prickish folks feel that they are entitled to lie, mislead, and misdirect normal people to support ends that are inimical to the average person, but beneficial to the select few. Yes, I'm pointing the finger at some politicians here. And yes, I'm pointing at some heads of industry. But I'm pointing the biggest finger (the middle finger, baby) at the media. The journalists. The so-called "4th branch of government" who needs to learn to do THEIR damn homework, grow a backbone, and start placing a little more emphasis on journalistic integrity.

The most egregious offender that I've seen is Fox News, although they're not the only ones culpable. The people who stand to make money off of Fox News know that sensationalism, anger, and fear mean big money. So they play into the feelings of paranoid alienation that plague angry white men and pander to their need to blame shitty education or job prospects on some shadowy (read: black) other because hey, it puts money in the bank. And we all get taken for a ride. Do you think the pundits who rule the Fox kingdom can truly be as odious as they seem? I doubt it. They just know where their next paycheck is coming from. That kind of cynical "vitriol for cash" mentality keeps journalism at its basest, lowest form.

And they're not alone, they're just the most obvious offender. All of the media has been fanning the flames of this absurd "birther" movement. It's crazy, and all the coverage of it detracts from actual political reporting. We have actual issues to deal with, like the economy, like getting a better health care system, like the fact that we still have our armed forces to look after. We need journalism that reports hard truths, well-researched facts, and does so in a way that is unbiased and not sensationalized. We need information to come not from the source with the best marketing or the most cash, but from the source with the most untainted, empirical approach possible (true impartiality is impossible, but we could still make great strides in this direction).

When journalism does its job for once, and gives people facts instead of puffed up talking heads to listen to, then maybe, just maybe, the public will be able to do their damn homework and participate in civic debates that are productive and that serve the best interests of the citizenry instead of serving the unfounded fears of a hostile, vocal minority that have been whipped into a frenzy by greedy, irresponsible leadership.

(No links this time, but google the Stephen Hawking thing, it's unreal.)