Jul 30, 2009

The "Conservative" Label

This morning on one of the morning news shows I heard a report that, in response to one of Faux News' shock jock's statement that the President is a racist, the President's spokesman said that the cable channel is deliberately trying to create controversies to attract conservative viewers.
Although I understand and agree with the core of this statement, I disagree with the used terminology. In my book, a conservative is someone who has traditional values like solid moral core, close family ties, respect for elders, and good work ethic. The audience Faux's shock jocks appeal to are either far right radicals, antisocial loons, or less than bright individuals, incapable of forming their own opinion or distinguishing truth from fabrication and news reporting from agenda-driven spin. This audience has no values and ideas of their own and can hate or love anyone and anything, depending on what the current shock-jock agenda is. These are not conservatives, they just believe they are, because in their mind listening to Faux makes them that. They can worship someone today and call for his or hers death tomorrow if that's what Faux is telling them is right. Those are the same people that read newspapers like "Weekly World News" and believe the stories there are true. Much like Faux's "Fair and balanced", the Weekly World News' slogan "The world's only reliable newspaper" is the complete opposite of what it actually is...
You know what the shock jocks are going to say before you even tune in - republicans are good and decent, democrats are stupid and corrupted, liberals are evil crybabies and if you disagree with the shock jocks (it does not matter on what) you are a communist. It does not matter what the situation is or even what are the true affiliations of the people involved, the shock jocks slap whatever label they want to anyone and anything they want and always spin the facts to support their current agenda. They loudly support causes they don't really care for like abortion prohibition and exclusive heterosexual marriage only to persuade the true supporters of those causes to vote for who- and whatever Faux tells them when the time comes. That's why there are so many ridiculous contradictions in what the shock jocks say today and what they have said in the past. Sometimes they even do it in the same sentence. It's hard to be consistent when you bend the truth all the time. What Faux is doing is not journalism but propaganda. Which would have been alright if they were honest about it instead of calling it names like "news", "truth", "what's right", and "fair and balanced".

So please, everyone, stop insulting the the meaning of the term "conservative" by labeling antisocial self-righteous radicals with it. Call them what they are: loony ego-maniacs, bent on defying all laws and decency, if they are not getting their way 100% of the time.

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