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Originally Posted by Intense1
First, who says Limbaugh's arguments aren't based on facts? Who says Ivin's arguments were? I've certainly learned here that "FACT" is a relative term, depending on which batch of evidence you unearth to support said "fact".
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Read any of his books lately? I liked The Way Things Ought to Be. Good read. Chock full'o bullshit.
He claims the Sierra Club wants to limit families to 2 children only. Nowhere in any of its documentation does the Sierra Club advocate this position. I have personally interviewed leaders of the Sierra Club and have asked them this question, and they have emphatically denied it. Where did Rush get this information from? How does he know?
He claims that Mount Pinatubo emits more than a thousand times as much ozone depleting chemicals in just one eruption than all of the chemicals made by all of the corporations in history. Trouble is, he's making shit up again. The chemicals released by volcanos are water soluable, which means they dissolve and come back to earth as rain without harming the ozone layer. CFC's do not. (Sources: NASA, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
He claimed that the repair of the highways after the big Californa earthquake in the early 90's was completed so quickly becuase competitive bidding was not used due to the state of emergency declared. He said "Government got the hell out of the way. in several TV shows in April of 94.
But according to an article in the LA Times on May 1st of 1994, there was in fact competitive bidding in which the winning contractor beat 4 others for the job. Oh, and according to the same article, not only did the government not get out of the way, but the federal government picked up the entire tab.
He claimed on one of his radio show episodes in the summer of '93 that banks take on risks by issuing student loans. But since student loans are federally insured, banks aren't actually taking any risks at all.
He claimed in the above mentioned book on page 70 that "Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America [in the '80s] resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth."
In fact according to the CBO, in 1980 the richest fifth of our population had 8 times the income of the poorest fifth. In 1989, the richest fifth had 20 times the income of the poorest fifth.
This last example is clearly either a blatant lie - i.e. he read the facts, they didn't support his argument, so he lied about them - or something that he has no actual knowledge of, and is simply making up.
There are lots more examples, but I think my point is proven.
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Am I to take all of respected poster Host's evidence links as fact? Or yours?
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Nope. Challenge 'em. Prove us wrong. But you'd better have YOUR facts in order if you want to try.
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Who is to say what is fact?
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Well if we're going to assume that we can't ever know the facts or the truth about anything then we may as well shut down the entire TFP. After all it could just be a figment of our collective imagination that is distorting reality in such a way as to be harmful to our real lives. How can we know? Facts are facts. If the CBO says the rich/poor gap has expanded, and they provide statistics to back that up, then that is a fact. Unless you can prove that the CBO is lying (good luck with that) then we can accept that as a fact. We can certainly say that it is a fact that the CBO said it, whether it's true or not. For Rush to then say that the CBO said the opposite of what the CBO in fact said shows that Rush either has no command of the facts, or is lying. Either way, it doesn't look good for Rush.
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You cast aspersions on Limbaugh, but where is your evidence to say he is incorrect in the things he says?
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See above.
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I personally am not a Limbaugh fan, to the contrary. But I also cannot say that much of what Molly Ivins said was actually based on FACT, and not on opinion. I read her stuff - she blasted Bush often with what was evidently her liberal bias.
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Give me evidence where she made stuff up or twisted the facts to strengthen her argument, like I have given you such evidence with Limbaugh. I'll give you a hint: she didn't have to.
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I notice you wrote of Limbaugh, the most controversial of conservatives.
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Um, you brought him up. . .
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What would you say of Sowell's writings? He's a very conservative writer and thinker - what say you of Thomas Sowell?
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Well he's better than Limbaugh, which admittedly isn't saying a whole helluvalot.
He wrote an article last week about global warming that indicated his ignorance of science. He expressed disgust that the people in the 1970's who predicted a future ice age are now talking about global warming. What he fails to understand is that global warming is precisely what leads to an ice age. As the earth warms, the ice melts, the water evaporates, and covers the planet in cloud. This blocks out the sun, causing global temperatures to plummet. They only need to go down a few degrees to cause the glaciers to advance again. Keep in mind we're in a warm period of an ice age right now, but we're still in an ice age. We still have glaciers, permafrost, all the halmarks of an ice age. Drop the average global temp. a few degrees and the glaciers advance. As this happens they reflect sunlight, and things keep getting colder. This of course is a grossly oversimplified explanation because this is not the thread to get into writing a science book.
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How can you debate my opinion?
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Um, that's pretty much the core of debate.
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When I say that I believe in a certain position on a certain issue, and when challenged, I state that it is based on the principles by which I was raised, and I have decided as an adult to adopt them on my own - how can you debate this? Why should I have to find some meaningless google-tripe to support it?
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You don't have to. But you complained about being ignored before, and yet you are now setting yourself up to be ignored again. People who just spout opinions without any factual basis for them are not interested in actually debating that opinion. At that point, it becomes impossible to debate with you. You have an opinion on something. That's great. We all agree that you have an opinion. Untill you tell us WHY you have that opinion (and by the way saying "because of the principles by which I was raised" is the same thing as saying "because I just do") then we cannot debate with you. And since this is a debate forum, yes, you are likely to be ignored if you choose that tactic.