The Limits of Acceptable Political Debate

Firedoglake » Who’s the More Foolish, The Fools, Or the Fools Who Fluff Them?; Or, Fred Hiatt, You Ignorant Cretin

It's not like Hiatt is intellectually incapable of perceiving empirical reality, like the scientific consensus on global warming. The evidence suggests that he just doesn't care. What he cares about is maintaining the balance of respectable opinion between batshit insane and mumblingly moderate that has prevailed in the political and media spheres for so long. And why shouldn't he? Hasn't he done quite well for himself out of it?

As we're seeing, even disastrous election results are not enough to persuade the GOP and conservatives to accept reality, and the "MSM" certainly isn't about to make them do it. It's an incredibly dangerous situation. Does it matter what the truth may be? Does it matter what the public wants?

Don't be absurd. What matters is where the limits of "legitimate" speech have been imposed -- and these have been imposed by those who have no incentive to be right, and face no penalty for being wrong, no matter what the damage may be to the nation, or the world.

Thers makes the seemingly obvious point that this is not a "center-right" country. It is a country where the people that control the limits of speech have decided that center-right is as far left as they want to allow the country to move despite all evidence that shows the country would be better off with a wider political debating range. The country would be better of, the puppermasters wouldn't.