Saturday, May 20, 2006

Big Brother is watching "Will and Grace"

From Tim Graham on the National Review blog, care of Dispatches from the Culture Wars: an amazingly concise and pithy logical absurdity.
On the occasion of the final episode of NBC's Will & Grace, Katie Couric insisted, "on a serious note," that it's one of her daughter's favorite shows, and it's so important to teach tolerance of "people who are different" at a "very early age." Anyone who expected a fair and balanced anchorwoman at CBS on the hot-button social issues, shred your illusions now.
So, tolerance is unfair. Unbiased acceptance is unbalanced. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

Correct me if I'm just being a fogey here, but back when people read books, weren't the mouth-frothing extremists a little more careful to avoid getting their rhetoric right out of dystopian fiction novels?

Since we here at Truth Tables like putting names to fallacies, let me go on record as saying that the whole "fair and balanced" line is the biggest crock of tautology and special pleading since I don't know when. "We're Fair and Balanced, so we don't have to be fair or balanced." Tim Graham, I submit to you my favorite rebuttal, suitable for many situations: Words mean things. Consider looking up a few.

3 Comments:

Blogger Laura said...

Well, maybe you look up words in a book. He looks them up in his gut.

You may be overly optimistic about the not-using-dystopia-for-your-slogan thing. I mean, didn't Reagan use "Born in the USA" as a campaign song? Not that I count the 80s as "back when people read books," but still.

May 21, 2006 9:46 AM  
Blogger jess said...

Ha ha, you just said PP. That is very funny.

You should get gmail. I use gmail chat all the time. (But yeah, I should probably remember to fire up AIM once in a while.)

Best blog comment ever, by the way.

May 23, 2006 10:22 PM  
Blogger Rebelbanker said...

Why do you hate America?


PS. Love the blog.

March 05, 2007 10:01 AM  

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