Time to understand difference between 'fact' and 'opinion'

Here’s a wonderful example from this mornings Reno Gazette-Journal, of a writer who hasn’t taken the time or effort to correctly state her position, much like Sharron Angle.

“Fact 1: Of course, you can blame Sen. Harry Reid for contributing to the highest unemployment rate in Nevada. As Senate majority leader, he has pushed the Dems’ tax-and-spend agenda through Congress. His actions have hurt both our national and Nevada’s economy. No wonder he is dogged by unfavorable ratings among Nevada voters over shameful unemployment rates and record foreclosures.

Fact 2.: Remember, it is Congress that controls the money. Since the election in 2006, the Democrats controlled Congress. Before that the economy was good. We now have the largest federal deficit in history. Thanks, Harry.

Fact 3: Congress is adopting the left-wing agenda of Obama, Reid and Pelosi. They’ve rammed through ObamaCare, wasteful stimulus packages, Cash for Clunkers, etc. Unfortunately, they are not done yet.

I recently saw a bumper sticker, “unREID our country.” Yeah to that.”

Lorraine Koster, Sparks

The common modern usage of the word fact refers to verified information that reflects an objective reality. An example might be the ‘fact’ that the earth revolves around the sun. This is a reality that has been repeatedly verified, objectively, by numerous authoritative sources.

But, when you take ‘facts’ that merely represent your own subjectively personal ‘reality’, that have only been ‘verified’ by your own Greek chorus of similar thinking pals, then it’s really not a ‘fact’ but rather an ‘opinion’.

It’s your own subjective  interpretation of the ‘facts’. The so-called facts that Lorraine represents are actually her mind-dependant judgements. Not facts. We can parse this, depending on a reading of Kant, of course. But let’s not and say we did. It would confuse Lorraine unnecessarily. Same goes for the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. That would make my head hurt.

I get annoyed by folks who either can’t tell the difference, or think I’m silly enough to not know they difference. Surprisingly perhaps, I did get something from all those years on the college debate team, and the classes in logic and reason.

As Judge Judy might say, “don’t pee on my shoes, and tell me that it’s raining.”

No, Lorraine, your misunderstanding of the Democrats ‘tax and spend’ economic model notwithstanding, spending had nothing to do with the financial meltdown from a purely practical standpoint. The meltdown was precipitated from some very, very bad decisions by Wall Street, based on a laissez-faire regulatory environment derived from the trashing of the Glas-Steagall Act by the Republican majority back in the ‘80’s… blame Sen. Phil Gramm, R-TX.

Uh, Reid didn’t have anything to do with that. Do these people ever do their homework, on anything?

Oh, yes and the economy was good before the crash, so that means Reid is to blame. Follow that bbbb-bouncing bbball of logic. If you can.

Actually, Lorraine, the economy was not good before 2006. It looked good, but there can be quite a divide between ‘looks’ and reality. But that’s not something you’re good at spotting. Wall Street was going great guns with just the very reckless fiscal mismanagement that caused the meltdown.

Again, ‘spending’ did not cause the current fiscal emergency.

Finally, your hysterical subjective opinion - not fact - about leftwing descents into Obamacare et al are just the rights’ way of muddying the intellectual waters and making sure that you are completely distracted by so many red-herring and ad hominum arguments that you’ll never claw your way out into the light of reason.

But, keep those letters coming, Lorraine.

They are instructive.