Facts matter

I have been increasingly troubled by the unreasoned discourse which has politicized so many issues. Nowhere is that process more evident than in matters relating to organized labor. This point is underscored in Kevin Williamson's NRO piece about ACORN, the SEIU, and the Republican oversight report released last week which does a fine job of detailing certain abuses before, as Williamson writes, "the authors slopped the report up with tangential complaints and grossly exaggerated claims about ACORN’s role in the housing bubble." More after the jump:
On the one hand, facts support solid criticism of "SEIUACORN," although Wade Rathke dissents. But there is no rational dissent to the fact that certain accusations fly in the face of facts that contest the political conclusion that ACORN played any substantial role in the housing bubble.

Miami Herald syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts wrote recently about some criticism he received after he did a column praising the heroics of an African-American soldier in World War II. Seems his critic did not believe the heroics occurred, which is just a little nutty since the underlying facts are neither controversial, are confirmed in historical compilations, and confirmed by contemporaneous accounts. The problem is eloquently presented by Pitts

"[I] can remember a time when facts settled arguments. This is back before everything became a partisan shouting match, back before it was permissible to ignore or deride as 'biased' anything that didn't support your world view. If you and I had an argument and I produced facts from an authoritative source to back me up, you couldn't just blow that off. You might try to undermine my facts, might counter with facts of your own, but you couldn't just pretend my facts had no weight or meaning."

As Pitts continues, he so eloquently frames the horror. We are on a treacherous and destructive path.

"To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper's online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe. I submit that any people thus handicapped sow the seeds of their own decline; they respond to the world as they wish it were rather to the world as it is. That's the story of the Iraq war. But objective reality does not change because you refuse to accept it. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge a wall does not change the fact that it's a wall. And you shouldn't have to hit it to find that out." 

I've edited this last remark because I think it cheapens his more universal point about objective fact, and because I believe there is room for spirited discourse about Iraq, including cause, effect and consequence.

A variant on this situation is the response often received by those who have engaged in critical thinking on a substantive issue. Not only are facts ignored, any conclusions are dismissed because the thinker hasn't seen "both sides." Now, while it is true a wall has two sides, both sides being equal, it does not matter which you hit, the effect and result is the same.

On so many issues like this too many people fail to discern fact from opinion, fail to accept and account for immutable truth, and deny the logic of any reality about which they do not approve. Congressional reports should be fact based, not agenda based. There is no crucible of ideas which can produce a brilliant end result from a flawed perception of reality. Out! Out! you demons of stupidity.