https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drn0Lg5gIRc
That's one of numerous examples of selective editing by CNN.
> The Left doesn't lie and manipulate on an industrial scale like this. The Left sometimes gets facts wrong, but there is no industrial fake-news network supporting left-leaning ideas. (And no - the mainstream media are not that network. The MSM are primarily pro-corporate and pro-establishment, not left-leaning.)
Even if that is true now (and it's a very dubious claim), you don't have to go back very far in history to see the left bending over backwards to justify the socialist utopia Stalin was building in the USSR.
If you believe in truth, if you believe in honesty, stop making excuses when the liars are on your side. Stop using the no true Scotsman fallacy to excuse liars. Dishonesty is used by human beings of all classes and political stripes. It always has and it always will be.
Let's call it out when we see it, leaving partisanship out if it as much as we can. This could be an issue that unites us, rather than splits us.
Something that makes this increasingly difficult is that we're having difficulty agreeing on shared truth. I think it's right to increase scrutiny on sources that are proving themselves untrustworthy, but we need to start trusting (and verifying) somewhere.
One things that separates the Alt Right from in the US the moribund and dying movement conservatives and libertarians is that we're willing to use any weapon the Left uses. That is, one thing that distinguishes us is that we refuse to play the game by the rules set for us by the other side, rules that ensure we lose.
So while we may find lies in the context of public discourse distasteful, they're certainly on the menu of tactics, although they're frankly weak sauce and hardly needed, like every other one of the Left's. The latter being a legitimate reason for the Left to be totally freaking out right now.
As for "unites or splits us", you're living in the past, we're split, ever increasingly during my entire lifetime (and I turn 56 RSN), can you honestly say there's any potential for this trend to not continue?
Put yourself in the shoes of the Right; what is the Left offering that would move us back "together" in some sense?
I think you are wrong about that. There's also the issue of the underdog not having the institutional control (media, fact-source institutions) to really build an effective counter PR scheme.
The UK's Brexit vote was swung by the fact that some of our newspapers have lied about the EU for decades. The list of lies is breathtaking. They literally just make shit up to further their cause.
The Left doesn't lie and manipulate on an industrial scale like this. The Left sometimes gets facts wrong, but there is no industrial fake-news network supporting left-leaning ideas. (And no - the mainstream media are not that network. The MSM are primarily pro-corporate and pro-establishment, not left-leaning.)
Once you start lying and manipulating professionally and commercially, notions of free speech no longer apply. Industrial dishonesty is toxic to democracy. It's also an easy and cheap tool of influence for hostile nation states who want to undermine shared values.