Facts Sir, just the facts! As a kid, I grew up hearing this on Dragnet every week. Jack Webb as Sargent Joe Friday plainly spoke this every week. It was a to the point and please keep to the facts without the opinion, hyperbole and/or drama. I have had numerous encounters with folks who chose to selectively pick and chose the data or facts to suit their own prejudices or opinions.
I have recently learned a serious lesson at my stage of life that you never really know people until their prejudices are encountered. I also experienced an extension of this when I posted, on a personal whim, a comment and video on my face book page that suggested we view and see what truth and facts were not evident? It attracted the usual agreements and disagreements as would be expected. It also attracted an old high school chum who chose to "challenge" the facts and suggested that BO was also a liar and that he would be glad to provide evidence. Well, I responded with a challenge to check out the sources and facts before you challenge. This was would be expected incited a barrage of emails, posts, and comments to my face book page. I should have just left him to his own prejudices and moved on. In the process, his cause celebre' "Sharia" laws and the invasion of Islam because the rally and the point. We had these "intellectual" discourses to an extent several months ago. The cause celebre' began when....Yes, when BO was elected. So it was "birther" issues and hysteria extraordinaire... I eased out of the conversation because he's one of the 20% that must believe in some other story line than the facts has bared out. Fact check, debunking, rebuking, corrections to the record matter not....He is stuck in some other parallel universe that I should not follow. I wish now as I did then that I was never part of this conversation to begin with....and I wish that I could still have my old friend from high school back. This friend was an unbiased friend that had some extraordinary talents and used them well. He has drifted to a place in our relationship that moves away from my positions and values. I guess he's entitled to his opinions----but not to his own facts. Further and finally, if the "facts" are disputed as he is prone to do....he should do some serious fact checking from universally reliable sources.
