I know there's a first ammendment and freedom of speech, but why is it so many people who reach the public seem to speak complete, unadulterated garbage, when there is so much truth to be told?
I mean, given the choice between truth and phony, what is the appeal of phony?
Here's a little sampling from the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald:
"[Horowitz] said the negative effects [of fluoride] include reduced IQ, hyperactivity, increased risk of developing certain types of cancer and severe thyroid damage.
'Fluoridated water has been shown to have very serious health effects: quadrupled risk of bone cancer in teenage boys, damage to the thyroid and other organs, which could explain the explosion in hypothyroidism, which itself has been linked to heart disease, mental decline and other illnesses.'"
I read this, as someone who has studied the thyroid for years, with great interest and could only think, "Haven't I seen this movie before?"
Ah, yes. "Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face? I can no longer sit back and allow Communists infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to slip impurities into all of our precious bodily fluids."
No, that is not Rush Limbaugh, although the rhythms sound a lot like him. It's none other than Dr. Strangelove.
Right there, a living breathing Dr. Strangelove, given a platform in the Portsmouth Herald.
Ask the Herald and what do you think they'll say in their own defense?
Likely the usual dodge, "We just report the news, we don't judge it."
Which is to say, "We want to sell papers, not pay someone to do fact checking."
To be fair, the bull detector meter is not flipping off scale in just the Portsmouth Herald. A look at Today's New York Times gets the meter jumping, although the Times has less responsibility because we are talking about the Letters to the Editor. But here's a good one, a letter from a pediatric cardiologist, no less, about how we can reign in costs of medical care:
"Permitting licensed and certified nonphysician medical personnel to form medical practices without physician oversight should significantly increase the number of medical providers and decrease medical costs by tempering the present physician monopoly of our health care."
Wow. What a great idea. It's easy to believe there would be more medical providers if we were not limited to the number of doctors medical schools can pump out yearly, but who has the studies which show all those extra providers would actually result in decreased medical costs.
In fact, the last time this was tried, increasing the number of doctors medical schools pumped out increased costs exponentially because they ordered more tests, admitted more patients to hospital and the policy makers had to admit, "Oops," and they beat a hasty retreat.
Now, you will argue, but if we have more nurse practitioners, they will be lower cost, charging less than doctors and costs will fall. But that's actually only a part of the costs of practitioners to the system--it's all the tests they order, all the admissions to hospitals. And, I would venture to guess, these practitioners tend to be less confident and, if what I have seen is any indication, they actually order more tests, and more expensive tests, than well trained doctors.
So where do these instant experts get their information?
Best I can see is it's the same phenomenon you see in the South, where people want to be "Preachers" and to "Speak in Tongues," and bring the Truth, i.e., the word of God to you and me. It gives them some sense of satisfaction, of self importance--just watch Rush Limbaugh if you want to see a study in the desperation of a personality in search of self importance--and our institutions of public address support all this, more or less indiscriminantly.
But then again, why am I writing a blog?
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