# left wing oriented falsehoods **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 21, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933 "2010-12-21T07:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/21 "2010-12-21T20:53:09Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > “You CAN’T reduce the crime rate until you’ve eliminated poverty, which is the root cause of crime.” Who says that? The crime rate has been dropping steadily for years. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/22 "2010-12-21T20:57:52Z")
my favorite liberal don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts-dogma: “The arab world doesnt really hate us–it’s only poverty that makes them carry out suicide bombings.” ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/23 "2010-12-21T21:06:42Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > 1. Banning or otherwise controlling “assault weapons” decreases crime > > 2. “Shall-issue” CCW policies increase gun-related violence > > Both positions are supported by the Brady Campaign and various Democratic legislators, and while I would characterize them as demonstrably false I’ll be charitable and say that such assertions are not supported by evidence. Don’t forget that 80% of the illegal weapons in Mexico originated in the U.S. Including the hand grenades and rocket launchers. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/24 "2010-12-21T21:16:47Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > my favorite liberal don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts-dogma: > “The arab world doesnt really hate us–it’s only poverty that makes them carry out suicide bombings.” A statement that I, as a liberal, don’t believe. I don’t know anyone who does. You’re combining two different things. The Arab world as a whole does not hate us, that’s true. A lot of the younger generation love western things, for example. As to the other assertion, poverty may be part of the cause, but it’s certainly not the _only_ cause. I don’t know any thinking person who would assert that. There are many causes, religious fanaticism being an important one. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/25 "2010-12-21T21:42:44Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > my favorite liberal don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts-dogma: > “The arab world doesnt really hate us–it’s only poverty that makes them carry out suicide bombings.” I’ve never heard that one. I usually hear that they hate us because we bomb them and prop up dictators over them. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/26 "2010-12-21T21:47:44Z")
> [@sundog66](#): > > The [article](http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid/) linked to in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=589527) thread reports a study claiming that Fox news viewers are significantly more likely than non-Fox news viewers to believe 8 of the the following 9 falsehoods: > > [ul] > [li] the stimulus legislation lost jobs[/li][li] the health reform law will increase the deficit[/li][li] the economy is getting worse[/li][li] climate change is not occurring[/li][li] income taxes have gone up[/li][li] the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts[/li][li] Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout[/li][li] that most Republicans opposed TARP[/li][li] Obama was not born in the U.S. (or it is unclear)[/li][/ul] > The author of the article therefore concludes that “Fox news makes you stupid”. > > As put forth by **Fotheringay-Phipps** in post #12 of the aforelinked thread, however, these are all “right wing oriented falsehoods”. So let’s say we wanted to design a study to demonstrate that CNN makes you stupid. What left wing oriented falsehoods should we include in the study to help ensure that we get this result? Why should we have to come up with some list of “left wing myths” to counter this list? :dubious: This list is neither left or right in nature, it is simply a list including statements regarding a selection of recent events/issues with, for the most part, clear right or WRONG answers (climate change is the ONLY one which I would grant any possible degree of subjectivity on, since there is some degree of possibly valid debate involved…ALL the others are cut and dried and a matter of public record.) Many of the statements on the proposed “left-wing” list were actually subjective in nature, and not clear-cut, objectively provable in the way those on the original list are. The question this study sought to address was which consumers of news were best informed re’ the FACTS. Obviously, they selected issues and items which were likely to carry political baggage, since they mostly have to do with political events. But it is not as if the selection unfairly biased the results…you either know Bush initiated the bail-outs or you DON’T/believe it was Obama. And it is no surprise that those who got most of their “news” from Fox, which has a clear, self-declared right-wing bias, were, when it came to accurate knowledge of questions relating to politics, the least informed. Now, whether this is a result of such viewers selecting to watch Fox due to pre-existing bias (duh) or being misinformed as a result of watching Fox (duh) or BOTH (double duh) is open for discussion. But this clearly reveals that regardless, they are not being informed out of their pre-existing bias/ignorance or to the degree that those who get their news elsewhere are. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/27 "2010-12-21T21:51:17Z")
**InterestedObserver** , Thank you. You said it better than I was able to. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/28 "2010-12-21T22:05:10Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Who says that? The crime rate has been dropping steadily for years. Exactly, which is why we know it’s a falsehood. But it’s a falsehood liberals parroted for years. Any time it was suggested that the police should get more aggressive or crack down on crime, liberals insisted that such measures were useless, that crime would NEVER go down until poverty was eradicated. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/29 "2010-12-21T22:12:37Z")
- Homeopathy, Eastern medicine, new age healing, and the like are effective medical treatments. - White flight is responsible for the birth of America’s suburbs. Specifically, whites fleeing an influx of blacks to the inner city. - Europe is a peaceful utopia where citizens are tolerant of all ethnicities, faiths and lifestyles, everybody is an atheist, 100% of all waste is recycled, there is no air or water pollution, most electricity is generated by clean sources of power, everybody soaks up high culture while low culture is nonexistent, obesity is nonexistent, everybody eats healthy locally sourced foods, etc. ---
**Author:** ![sundog66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@sundog66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sundog66)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/30 "2010-12-21T22:18:58Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#): > > Why should we have to come up with some list of “left wing myths” to counter this list? :dubious: > This list is neither left or right in nature, it is simply a list including statements regarding a selection of recent events/issues with, for the most part, clear right or WRONG answers (climate change is the ONLY one which I would grant any possible degree of subjectivity on, since there is some degree of possibly valid debate involved…ALL the others are cut and dried and a matter of public record.) > > Many of the statements on the proposed “left-wing” list were actually subjective in nature, and not clear-cut, objectively provable in the way those on the original list are. > > The question this study sought to address was which consumers of news were best informed re’ the FACTS. Obviously, they selected issues and items which were likely to carry political baggage, since they mostly have to do with political events. > > But it is not as if the selection unfairly biased the results…you either know Bush initiated the bail-outs or you DON’T/believe it was Obama. And it is no surprise that those who got most of their “news” from Fox, which has a clear, self-declared right-wing bias, were, when it came to accurate knowledge of questions relating to politics, the least informed. > > Now, whether this is a result of such viewers selecting to watch Fox due to pre-existing bias (duh) or being misinformed as a result of watching Fox (duh) or BOTH (double duh) is open for discussion. But this clearly reveals that regardless, they are not being informed out of their pre-existing bias/ignorance or to the degree that those who get their news elsewhere are. First of all, of course we don’t “have” to come up with a list of left wing myths to “counter” this list. I was just curious what people would come up with. And I disagree that this is as simple a matter as you make it out to be. Even if the original list includes only objective falsehoods, they’re still falsehoods that tend to support a right-wing worldview, and I believe that it is possible as well to find falsehoods that tend to support a left-wing worldview for which the results would probably come out opposite. To keep things as evenhanded as possible, let’s take two ridiculous statements that I think any reasonable person would see as falsehoods, the first taken from the original list in the study, and the second that I just found on snopes: 1. Obama was not born in the US. 2. According to a study, George W. Bush has the lowest IQ of any president in the last 50 years. I suspect that CNN viewers would be more likely than Fox viewers to believe (2). And we could come up with a whole list of objective falsehoods like (2) and run the study. And then we could parade the results around under the guise of “The question this study sought to address was which consumers of news were best informed re’ the FACTS”. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/31 "2010-12-21T22:21:29Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > - Homeopathy, Eastern medicine, new age healing, and the like are effective medical treatments. These sorts of things are common to the fringes on both the left and the right. You should listen to some of the hardcore right-wing radio shows and you’ll hear ads for all this kind of stuff. Or, spend some time in Utah. Most of the fad dietary supplements come out of Utah and Orrin Hatch was the key leader in getting DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act) passed. Hatch and Utahns in general are anything but liberal. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/32 "2010-12-21T22:23:23Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > When did we find WMD in Iraq? Weapons of Mass Distraction. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/33 "2010-12-21T22:24:55Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > - Homeopathy, Eastern medicine, new age healing, and the like are effective medical treatments. > > - White flight is responsible for the birth of America’s suburbs. Specifically, whites fleeing an influx of blacks to the inner city. > > - Europe is a peaceful utopia where citizens are tolerant of all ethnicities, faiths and lifestyles, everybody is an atheist, 100% of all waste is recycled, there is no air or water pollution, most electricity is generated by clean sources of power, everybody soaks up high culture while low culture is nonexistent, obesity is nonexistent, everybody eats healthy locally sourced foods, etc. Again, not one of these is a statement which has an objective, provable, matter-of-public-record answer (unlike the statements used in the study). Now, something like, “The U.S. spends more, as a percentage of its GNP, on health care than any other industrialized nation” (true, ftr) is an example of a comparable “left-wing fallacy” (though it’s NOT, actually, a fallacy). ETA, I’d actually be interested in seeing some examples along these lines. I’m sure there are some. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/34 "2010-12-21T22:25:08Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > … > > - Europe is a peaceful utopia where citizens are tolerant of all ethnicities, faiths and lifestyles, everybody is an atheist, 100% of all waste is recycled, there is no air or water pollution, most electricity is generated by clean sources of power, everybody soaks up high culture while low culture is nonexistent, obesity is nonexistent, everybody eats healthy locally sourced foods, etc. Are you serious? Do you really think that anyone believes any of this? I don’t even recognize this as a common strawman. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/35 "2010-12-21T22:32:26Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Exactly, which is why we know it’s a falsehood. But it’s a falsehood liberals parroted for years. Any time it was suggested that the police should get more aggressive or crack down on crime, liberals insisted that such measures were useless, that crime would NEVER go down until poverty was eradicated. Well. That’s not exactly what you said. The truth is that no one knows exactly why crime is falling. (For example, here’s an idea you might not be familiar with: I did a sort of literature overview of several studies that made a convincing case that the ultimate cause of the drop in crime is environmental - that it stems from the removal of lead from gas and paint. Lead exposure is known to cause lower IQs and having a low IQ is known to correlate with criminal behavior. The timelines of the first generation of children who were not exposed to environmental lead reaching their teen years matches up very closely with the beginning of the drop in the crime rate.) There is certainly no known correlation between additional police activity and the drop in violent crime that has been taking place in the US since the 1990s, no matter what Rudy Giuliani wants to think. Therefore, I would suggest that it is not implausible that additional police measures _could_ be useless, or not worth the cost. Without knowing exactly what these hypothetical liberal activists said, it’s difficult for me to criticize their ideas. The idea that crime can never be lowered until poverty is eradicated is obviously untrue, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/36 "2010-12-21T22:36:46Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Are you serious? Do you really think that anyone believes any of this? I don’t even recognize this as a common strawman. :rolleyes: I’ve heard American liberals suggest this sort of thing. Maybe not in such hyperbolic terms, but yeah. I don’t know why you’re so sarcastic about it. FWIW, I’m an American liberal myself, but I’ve also spent a lot of time in Europe, so I know what a lot of bullshit it is. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/37 "2010-12-21T22:40:45Z")
My favorite lefty myth is that the oil companies hold a patent on a car that will get 200-300mpg, but they do not produce it so that their profits remain high. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/38 "2010-12-21T23:03:15Z")
Liberal Dopers pointing out that despite their liberalism they don’t subscribe to any of the left wing myths miss the point. I imagine few if any right wing Dopers subscribe to the “Fox News viewer” myths. The point is that if you tested viewers of left wing outlets they would believe these myths at higher rates than the general population. Which is analogous to the claim about Fox News viewers. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/39 "2010-12-21T23:21:39Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > My favorite lefty myth is that the oil companies hold a patent on a car that will get 200-300mpg, but they do not produce it so that their profits remain high. [It runs on water man!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_CbuQKT8SU) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933/40 "2010-12-21T23:44:44Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The point is that if you tested viewers of left wing outlets they would believe these myths at higher rates than the general population. Which is analogous to the claim about Fox News viewers. There really isn’t any left wing equivalent of Fox, at least not of any significance. Besides, the right wing suffers from the fact that its view of the world is in many ways simply factually wrong; not just wrong in matters of opinion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-wing-oriented-falsehoods/564933.md?page=3)