# Is it ok to dismiss someone for watching FOX? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593 "2010-07-13T21:21:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/221 "2010-07-15T17:38:46Z")
NPR? Lord God, Jim Bob, what a hardcore Marxist organization? Didn’t they give a forum to that bomb-throwing loon, Bill Moyers? A radical revolutionary if ever I saw one, seething with proletariat fury! And don’t even get me started on that commited Trotskyist, Mark Shields! ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/222 "2010-07-15T17:42:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I think my lefty credentials are in good standing, and I couldn’t have cared less. Point of fact: the New Black Panthers have no credibility or standing amongst the left generally. Many of us have some nostalgia for the Black Panther Party, for the work they did in that hardest of times. And we regret that they went totally off the rails, but they did, and that’s that. How much of that madness may be lain at the feet of thier persecutors, I leave to you. > > But the New Black Panthers are a pimple on the butt of politics, a storefront organization trying to sieze upon what remains of the original Panthers mystique. _Feh_, says I, and _Feh_! says most lefty. > > If you cannot read and understand our opinions, what on earth makes you think you can read our minds? It matters not what the New Black Panther’s lefty standing is. The fact is that they pretty clearly broke the law. Further, Obama’s politically (and racially? how can one not think that too?) charged Justice Dept let them get away with this. Sorry, it’s indefensible. I’m glad you have no problem with it, but it’s still indefensible. PS Not sure what you mean by laying the blame at the ‘persecuters’… surely you’re not blaming the victim, are you? I mean, sure she shouldn’t have been jogging in Central Park after midnight, what was she thinking? Of course she was raped, after all there were some wilding teenagers right there… ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/223 "2010-07-15T17:42:58Z")
There wasn’t any voter intimidation, and I would have said the same thing if it was a guy in a Klan robe. The Panthers never harassed or threatened any voters and never tried to tell them who to vote for. The guy the Panther is yelling at on tape was a GOP poll watcher, not a voter. Voter inimidation charges require some actual evidence that voters were intimidated. Not one voter claimed to have been intimidated, so there wasn’t any evidence to support that charge. If a couple of guys in Klan robes were standing outside a polling place as poll watchers (as the Panthers were), but they were not bothering any voters, I would not want them charged with voter intimidation, even if one of them had a stick and bitched to another poll watcher about race traitors. The fact that anyone actually buys that there was some kind of nefarious, racist conspiracy going on with dropping a civil suit for lack of evidence just serves to prove why it’s safe to doubt the intellectual capabilities of people who believe everything they see on Fox News. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/224 "2010-07-15T17:46:41Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > There was nothing about the Lewinski affair _pe se_ that was newsworthy or scandalous. It only became newsworthy because the Starr Inquistion used it to engineer a perjury trap. The blow job, in itself, was not worth reporting on before the perjury trap. Wait… what? Adultery by the president isn’t newsworthy? That’s your story? The fact that Newsweek was sitting on it until the conservative media scooped them isn’t relevant? Either you are whooshing me, or you are so far gone that further conversation is probably useless. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/225 "2010-07-15T17:47:24Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Well, I’ve used facts in this discussion. No you haven’t. You’ve ignored them. FOX News promotes false information. Things that are not factually true. It does this all the time and there is simply no comparison to any of the so-called MSM on this point. FOX News viewers want to have their ignorant view of the world tickled. That’s what the channel is for. > [@](#): > > I notice you never addressed the fact that it took ‘conservative media’, to coin a term, to uncover the Lewinsky scandal, or more recently the Justice Dept playing politics by dropping the voter intimidation case against the Black Panthers. If the situation were reversed, I have no doubt that the left would be screaming holy murder. You missed the whole point. FOX News promotes false information. They aren’t giving info that the so called MSM isn’t. They are giving false information. FOX News lied to you. The Black Panther story isn’t a story. It is a tiny little incident that has been trumped up to tickle the fantasy world view of people, like yourself. From: [http://www.newsweekinteractive.net/2010/07/14/the-new-black-panther-party-is-the-new-acorn0.html?from=rss](http://www.newsweekinteractive.net/2010/07/14/the-new-black-panther-party-is-the-new-acorn0.html?from=rss) > [@](#): > > Several months after the 2008 Election Day incident (and 13 days before President Obama was sworn in) the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against the NBPP under the Voting Rights Act, alleging voter intimidation. In May 2009, Justice—now led by Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama’s appointee—successfully obtained an injunction against King Samir Shabazz, the man who carried the nightstick, then dropped the suit, Fox News reported. A spokeswoman at Justice says a career attorney made the call, which was then affirmed by an appointee, because “the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims against the other defendants in the case. A federal judge determined that the relief requested by the Department was appropriate.” You also mentioned ACORN, and factually, ACORN did nothing wrong. You believe they did, because you don’t understand what factually happened in reality. ACORN was destroyed by lies promoted by FOX News, not by journalism. You should live you life basing your opinions on facts, not seeking lies that support your opinions. > [@](#): > > There is a huge part of the country that doesn’t trust the MSM, and with good reason (Q.E.D.). For those who think that the MSM is shooting them straight, read [this](http://people-press.org/report/543/) It isn’t for good reason. It’s because their ignorant view of reality isn’t supported by facts. Their fantasy flies in conflict with the actual world. > [@](#): > > If you care to address those issues in the first paragraph, now’s the time. Or you can wave the white flag. Whichever. I understand that when you’ve been proven wrong it is your desire to declare victory. You have done this before. But when you are factually incorrect and basing your opinions on lies, you have not won. This isn’t about slamming your fingers into your ears and shouting “I WIN!”, this is about FOX Viewers believing things that are simply not true. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/226 "2010-07-15T17:49:12Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Or simply repeat himself. He’s good at that. > > Regards, > Shodan When the opponent is unable to understand things said plain, sometimes repetition is necessary. Ya dig? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/227 "2010-07-15T17:52:48Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Wait… what? Adultery by the president isn’t newsworthy? That’s your story? The fact that Newsweek was sitting on it until the conservative media scooped them isn’t relevant? I don’t think adultery by a President is particularly newsworthy, unless they have campaigned on adultery being a major flaw. I do, however, think that sex with a subordinate at work is newsworthy in a President or anyone else in a position of authority. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/228 "2010-07-15T17:53:14Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > There is a huge part of the country that doesn’t trust the MSM, and with good reason (Q.E.D.). For those who think that the MSM is shooting them straight, read [this](http://people-press.org/report/543/) And that actually supports what I’ve been saying, if the MSM was liberal or taken as liberal one would see those numbers go higher for Democrats (after all they are liberal, don’t cha know 🙂 ) That total level of distrust (Only 29% of the public trust the MSM and FOX) does include conservatives and liberals that are not happy with the way the mainstream is giving us the news. For democrats at least they should be more positive if the opinion that the MSM is liberal is valid. Almost 60% of democrats still think the MSM gets the news wrong, for Republicans it is almost 70% even when FOX is included. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/229 "2010-07-15T17:57:23Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Wait… what? Adultery by the president isn’t newsworthy? That’s your story? The fact that Newsweek was sitting on it until the conservative media scooped them isn’t relevant? No and no. Of course not. Why the hell should a politician’s private sex life be newsworthy unless it involves some kind of illegality? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/230 "2010-07-15T18:02:47Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > …PS Not sure what you mean by laying the blame at the ‘persecuters’… surely you’re not blaming the victim, are you? I mean, sure she shouldn’t have been jogging in Central Park after midnight, what was she thinking? Of course she was raped, after all there were some wilding teenagers right there… Repulsive, disgusting. Of all the analogies you might have chosen, what on earth made you pick that one? I would hope you’d be ashamed of it, I fear I will be disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/231 "2010-07-15T18:05:41Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And that actually supports what I’ve been saying, if the MSM was liberal or taken as liberal one would see those numbers go higher for Democrats (after all they are liberal, don’t cha know 🙂 ) > > That total level of distrust (Only 29% of the public trust the MSM and FOX) does include conservatives and liberals that are not happy with the way the mainstream is giving us the news. > > For democrats at least they should be more positive if the opinion that the MSM is liberal is valid. Almost 60% of democrats still think the MSM gets the news wrong, for Republicans it is almost 70% even when FOX is included. Now, this is actually a reasonable response, among the few we’ve seen in this thread. I agree that the distrust numbers associated w/MSM also includes Fox. Which brings us back to the OP: if you want to ridicule someone who gets their news from FOX, then you should probably ridicule those who get it from any of the mainstream news networks. Maybe that’s [why](http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2010/06/poll_shows_americans_trust_facebook_and.php)Facebook and Twitter are displacing those sources as the go-to for the next generation ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/232 "2010-07-15T18:07:04Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Repulsive, disgusting. Of all the analogies you might have chosen, what on earth made you pick that one? I would hope you’d be ashamed of it, I fear I will be disappointed. It was the first ‘blame the victim’ situation that came to mind, and a situation that most people are aware of. Which seemed to be the point I was responding too. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/233 "2010-07-15T18:08:55Z")
**Shodan** , read post 225. As you say, no fact or data, just keep repeating stuff over and over. (FOX lies! THey make stuff up! It’s all fantasy!) No actual fact and data… ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/234 "2010-07-15T18:12:54Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > I agree that the distrust numbers associated w/MSM also includes Fox. Which brings us back to the OP: if you want to ridicule someone who gets their news from FOX, then you should probably ridicule those who get it from any of the mainstream news networks. And I did also early, but you continue to miss most points.. The key was and still is that the OP adds the condition that the dismissed viewer also thinks that the source is “fair and balanced” or pure as snow. Once you apply that condition it is indeed OK to also dismiss those that deny the many times that FOX news has lied to the American people. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/235 "2010-07-15T18:13:03Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > **Shodan** , read post 225. As you say, no fact or data, just keep repeating stuff over and over. (FOX lies! THey make stuff up! It’s all fantasy!) No actual fact and data… There are numerous examples in this thread. Please take the time to read it. So, how about ACORN? Do you understand that ACORN did nothing wrong and was destroyed by lies on FOX News? So, how about the Black Panther “scandal”. Do you understand that it is a non-issue. I’d like to eventually get some confirmation that you acknowledge you are wrong, but I won’t be holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/236 "2010-07-15T18:29:23Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > **Shodan** , read post 225. As you say, no fact or data, just keep repeating stuff over and over. (FOX lies! THey make stuff up! It’s all fantasy!) No actual fact and data… Well, I think \*\*Lobohan \*\*is doing OK here and \*\*Shodan \*\*just continues to proudly miss the point, but do I have to assume that you are still insisting that FOX never makes stuff up? I will have to bring the example I have the most experience with: “Climategate” This environmentalist reporter explains it better: [http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-change/stories/planet-pundit-the-climategate-outrage](http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-change/stories/planet-pundit-the-climategate-outrage) > [@](#): > > Dispassionate follow-ups. Subtle analyses. A careful adherence to facts. > > Hey, who am I kidding? These aren’t landmarks of the mainstream media anymore. (Were they ever?) > > So let’s not feign surprise that last week’s exoneration by an independent panel of the scientists smeared for the so-called “Climategate” scandal got about as much attention on cable news as did all those ice shelves melting into the Southern Ocean. > > In case you were too busy reading scientific journals last fall to notice, Climategate refers to the non-scandal that erupted after someone stole 13 years worth of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in Great Britain, routed the data, in cloak-and-dagger fashion, through Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and posted choice portions of it on a Russian computer server. > > A handful of snotty comments by scientists who were e-mailing each other privately, a few phrases that could be taken out of context, the occasional bunker mentality exhibited by researchers who were sick of being harassed by serial open records requests from mysteriously well-financed climate change deniers — and voila! You have a scandal worthy of throwing out 40 years of peer-reviewed research — a scandal worthy of weakening whatever willpower our pitiful, fossil-fuel-addicted citizenry had been beginning to muster to kick the nasty habit that is threatening the standard of living of our children. > > Actually, I pronounced “voila!” too soon. The other necessary ingredient to cook the non-scandal into Climategate was our over-reactive and under-thinking media — particularly the thoroughly corrupt right-wing media. > > Don’t expect Fox, talk radio, and the rest of the partisan propagandists to change their tune on the topic now though — much less issue corrections or apologies. They won’t let facts get in the way of their script, which, on the environmental stage, is that the “us” is made up of good, hardworking pickup-driving Americans (along with their natural allies: energy company billionaires), while the “them” is made up of polar bears, greedy scientists, Al Gore and their natural allies: the liberal-socialist-fascist-environmentalist-dogooder-Democrat-communists who want to pry the gasoline hose from our cold dead fingers. > > The exoneration came in the form of a report by independent academics. Along with mild criticism over the openness of the climate scientists to their own critics, the panel hailed the scientists’ professionalism. “We find that their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,” the report says. > > Get this: It was the fifth independent report on the non-scandal to exonerate scientists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Which brings up an inconvenient question: If the lack of wrongdoing was so obvious, why was this considered a scandal in the first place? > > The answer is an inconvenient truth for the news media: Journalists did more to misinform people about the stolen emails than did everyone else combined. > > **Search the word “Climategate” on the Fox News website. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything on the five studies exonerating the scientists; I didn’t find anything at all the day after the report was released.** Another reason why I bring this report here is that the reporter, like me, also does not see the mainstream helping: > [@](#): > > The problem, though, isn’t the 40 percent of Americans who can be convinced that any effort made to solve one of our society’s great problems actually is a ploy to take money and freedom away from them. The problem really is the 20 or 30 percent of Americans who stand wobbly-kneed in the middle of the road when it comes to climate change. > > Which means that the mainstream media — especially CNN and the broadcast networks — shouldn’t be let off the hook. Back in the fall, CNN and the broadcast news networks covered Climategate with the false sense of “balance” and sensationalism that are the defining characteristic of American journalism. I mean “balance” in the sense that the accusations of industry-funded activists, political opportunists and proven liars should be weighed as credible enough to place ethically impeccable scientists on the defensive. And I mean “sensationalism” in the sense that the most outrageous claims made against someone else should be reported in breathless fashion because it’s “conflict”. > > Even the “balanced” press isn’t treating the exoneration with the same sensational vigor that it did the “scandal” last fall. The story did make the front page of the July 8th New York Times. But its coverage falls back into the same muck of false balance that marred much of the media’s coverage last fall. > > Rather than addressing the true outrage of false accusations leveled on credible scientists, the writer, Justin Gillis, relies on “balanced” scientist Roger Pielke Jr. as his golden source. Pielke, who actually is rather controversial in the climate science field for appearing at times to play both sides against the middle, pronounces his bottom-line lesson from Climategate: “The e-mails … changed the notion that people could blindly trust one authoritative group, when it turns out they’re just like everyone else.” > > That’s kind of a ridiculous thing to say right after a fifth-straight independent report found precisely the opposite: Granted it included some criticisms, but mainly — and unequivocally — it vouched for the trustworthiness scientists’ actual research. > > The real story — which Pielke and other tightrope walkers miss — is painfully obvious: It’s that a corrupt bunch of mysteriously well-funded hoodlums stole e-mails, posted them in a skulking fashion, and made wildly false accusations about what the e-mails said. And more to the point: That much as it did during the McCarthy era, the media amplified the grift, which had the effect of hijacking any reasonable debate over what to do about climate change. > > The mainstream media is unlikely to dwell too long on that subject. It involves too much looking into a mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/237 "2010-07-15T18:55:20Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > When the opponent is unable to understand things said plain, sometimes repetition is necessary. > > Ya dig? The problem is not that the opponent is unable to understand. The problem is that we do. > [@Mr Smashy](#): > > Shodan, read post 225. As you say, no fact or data, just keep repeating stuff over and over. (FOX lies! THey make stuff up! It’s all fantasy!) No actual fact and data… 'Twas ever thus. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table. There’s an awful lot of table-pounding on the SDMB. Intersperse that with a general chorus of “THAT DOESN’T COUNT AND IT NEVER HAPPENED AND IT DOESN’T COUNT!” repeated almost _ad infinitum_, and you have debate about liberal media bias on the SDMB. Lots of other things as well, but the knees jerk pretty hard on that topic in particular. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/238 "2010-07-15T18:59:33Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The problem is not that the opponent is unable to understand. The problem is that we do. 'Twas ever thus. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table. There’s an awful lot of table-pounding on the SDMB. > > Intersperse that with a general chorus of “THAT DOESN’T COUNT AND IT NEVER HAPPENED AND IT DOESN’T COUNT!” repeated almost _ad infinitum_, and you have debate about liberal media bias on the SDMB. Meh, even Mr Smashy brought evidence that supports what I have been saying, it is clear who is screaming and pounding on the table. Disregards, ED. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/239 "2010-07-15T19:00:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The problem is not that the opponent is unable to understand. The problem is that we do. > > 'Twas ever thus. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table. There’s an awful lot of table-pounding on the SDMB. > > Intersperse that with a general chorus of “THAT DOESN’T COUNT AND IT NEVER HAPPENED AND IT DOESN’T COUNT!” repeated almost _ad infinitum_, and you have debate about liberal media bias on the SDMB. > > Lots of other things as well, but the knees jerk pretty hard on that topic in particular. > > Regards, > Shodan I notice you do not address the fact that FOX News promotes things that are not true. Where is your evidence that the so called MSM does this? Smugly dismissing factual claims isn’t a strategy to actually win arguments. It’s a strategy to pretend you have won them. But then again, since the FOX News devotees are interested in comforting lies, this explains the tendency of the rightward folks on the Dope to play the pretending game. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/240 "2010-07-15T19:03:13Z")
I tend to dismiss the opinions of anyone who get any of their opinions from any television or radio programs. They are about one step above bumper stickers if you ask me. Why watch an hour television show when I an read the same information in 10 minutes? Television shows have to oversimplify to present their information in the time frame they are working in. The visuals rarely add anything and are often an attempt to bypass the rational parts of your brain and get at you at a more visceral level. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593.md?page=13)