I am very much a free speech absolutist. I hate the word “gaslighting” because I believe the solution for false speech, disinformation, propaganda is true speech supported by objective data and strong reasoning and rhetoric. “Gaslighting” implies the listener is a victim, helpless unless aided by an authority.
It is a myth of modern American journalism that any news source is impartial. All news sources have biases; every nation outside the US recognizes this (in many free western nations, major newspaper are owned by political parties). In the US, this means that when an AQ affiliate attacks a US diplomatic mission in Libya on 9-11-2012 and kidnaps and kills the ambassador, 10 hours after the incumbent president gave a speech extolling his victory over AQ, a friendly media reports the attack as a random mob, perhaps stirred up by GOP initiatives. This did not cancel the truth- rational people could figure out what happened based entirely on the reporting that did come out- they just had to find alternate public media to discuss it.
That is life in this modern, free society. You have to use critical reasoning skills to weigh alternate claims about actual events. There are no pure, selfless heroes in public life, but there are good ideas- government by consent, inalienable rights, rule of law. I am unashamed to say I root for the nations that best reflect those ideas (even if imperfectly) over those that don’t.
(Here is a pro tip- the nations that have the same guy in charge for over 20 years are the ones that tend to be autocracies. Yes, I know that includes NATO member Turkey. No, that doesn’t include the UK; she’s a figure head).
My beef with Musburger has never been about his criticism of the US. I often am disgusted by our leadership and the am alarmed by the increasing ties between government, financial markets and technology industry. I pray that we find our way back, learning from the wisdom of the 18th century Scot philosophers and rejecting the lunatic dreams of the 19th century German and English philosophers.
No, my beef with Mus was always about his fan boy love of Putin and Russia, and his parroting of the ridiculous lies and claims the Russians generate to provide cover and deniability for their state murders and other crimes. How you go from rejecting the US flawed implementation of Locke, Smith and Hume for lack of ideological purity to accepting the two bit dictatorship of Vlad Putin (which is more and more looking like Nazi Germany minus the anti Semitism, technical capability, and military culture) is beyond me.
