Your Opinions Are Facts? Really?

Anymore these days, people look at me like I just ate their first born child when I talk about my opinions dealing with politics. After all, they are just my opinions, and everyone has the right to have their own personal views and beliefs. What really frustrates me the most, is when my opinions don't fit neatly into their beliefs with their political views. They either get extremely argumentative or refuse to talk about it anymore with me. I remind them that they are just my opinions and in no way am I trying to tell them what to think or what party to back. I would never tell anyone who they should like or dislike or even what to think because I want people to make up their own minds and to have their own opinions. I know I don't like it at all when it is done to me. I just want people as a whole in today's society to have an open mind and get informed before they start to preaching to others about beliefs that they really don't know much about. Even worse then not being informed is to be ill informed and persuaded by people in the media that say they are unbiased and impartial and just report the facts. Take Fox News for example, people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Andrew Napolitano and many others tell stories to stir up fear and paranoia for ratings and to further their own personal agenda. Fox News is in no way impartial because they have to appease their sponsors and pandering to their demographics. How can you report the truth when you are worrying about the bottom line, profits? Most of the guest and reporters are hand picked to go on air knowing that they are in line with their beliefs and political views.

Now that the Tea party is on the scene, they have a new audience to preach their half truths and skewed facts to. These people are eating it up and can't get enough of it. If you were to go to any of these Tea party members and ask them where they get there news on politics from, most of them say proudly with out hesitation, Fox News. To them Fox News is the end all, be all when it comes to political facts. They are taking what they say as if it was coming from their God, himself. I say God, himself because it seems like with the Tea Party they are overwhelmingly Christians and very religious. Knowing that, certain media outlets play on that fact to drive home their points of view on politics saying it is true and supported with facts. Hearing the same thing over and over again by different people with the same political outlook doesn't mean that you are getting the information from a well rounded poll of political peers. It just means you are getting the same information by different people saying the same thing. By hearing these soundbytes and stories repeatedly Without actually paying attention it starts to sound like the truth and then they form their opinions using this information. Most of them do this without listening to both sides and even fewer do any independent research for themselves. That's why at a lot of these rallies and gatherings you hear them shouting and holding up signs in which they really don't know anything about. If you don't believe me just ask some of them about whats on the sign or about what they keep saying and shouting out loud. Most of them, not all, but most of them will repeat a soundbyte they heard from their news source and have no information or facts about it at all to back up their opinions. A lot of them that do this can't go into any details about what it is they are telling other people to think and support. In a rally or gathering situation when you have a huge group of people doing this it just reinforces the beliefs because they are seeing others that they have never met before saying the same thing. Thinking to themselves that if there are so many people saying the same thing, it has to be true. Repetition of a lie or opinion doesn't make that lie or opinion the truth, no matter how many times you hear it. After all, a lie that is perceived as truth through repetition will always continue to be a lie. If these people would just step back from themselves and think using common sense they might just start to think about what they have been saying and look at everything in a different light. But most are caught up in the situation and don't know any other way to think about it. I just want people in this society to practice some common sense and do their own research before trying to tell others what they should think and do. We are all living in the time of information where it is easily found everywhere and even easier to get. It is a shame that with all the information out there, they are choosing to ignore it for a one stop shop media outlet that is saying what they want to hear because they are saying what the are thinking, instead of the facts from both sides. Please, don't be just a follower or one of the pack, but be a leader. Be a leader of your own thoughts and ideas then maybe, just maybe, things in this world will be different and change for the good for everyone, not just the few.