First off, I chatted on the phone with my close friend, who I have known for about 35 years. We raised kids together, vacationed together and have always been like family, until recently. Over the past year or so, since her political views changed and mine have remained the same, we have had some differences of facts, much like the six and nine above. Notice, I did not say opinions. Both of us watched the news yesterday. I saw on one of the local news channels that teachers are in the next phase of vaccine distribution. Since I am a teacher and want to get a shot badly, I am very happy to hear this and shared this. My friend, also a school employee, was quick to inform me that she saw on the news 4 different times yesterday that teachers did not need vaccines. She never said where she saw this, but I have a sneaking suspicion since she is a Fox News junkie. AND, Tell that to the math teacher that I work with who had Covid for 3 plus weeks and was very, very ill, but I digress. How can both of us be correct? Which one of us has the facts? I think it is me. She is convinced it is her, and hence we get silence on the line while one of us decides how to manage the disagreement. This happens increasingly more often when we talk these days. The phone call ends quickly after this exchange. We could probably find two different doctors or scientists that will back each of us depending on where we get our information from.
Next, I go to Google News. I like to read a little bit from all different sources so I will look at feeds from all both conservative and liberal organizations on Google instead of going to specific news sites. I only read the conservative to see if they can sway me, but so far, its a big NO! The first article I come across is from Newsweek and the title is entitled," Kayleigh McEnany Faces Online Backlash for Mocking Biden's 'Love Kids Better than People' remark." Apparently, President Biden made a comment on television saying he liked kids more than others, and when I began to read this article I couldn't believe someone could find innuendo or something to attack in that statement. He clearly has a loving and active relationship with his grandchildren, and I being a teacher can claim the same. I read on to find out what the hub bub was about only to find that she put an emoji showing a perplexed expression. I still did not understand what could be made of that until I read on through the responses and found one that was of the OPINION that she was referring to a conspiracy theory. Apparently, somewhere out there the Qanon people believe Joe Biden and the liberals were involved in child sex trafficking. My OPINION is that that is not true, but I would be scared to ask the friend I just hung up from what her thoughts were. A few weeks ago she told me that Trump won the election, and I would soon find out it was true, and that was after Biden had been certified. I digress again. McEnany quickly shot that down and claimed she was attacking his pro choice record and people should not attach intent to her words. Fair enough! We will never know her actual intent other than to rally her cronies and stir her critics up.
I guess my point is if you watch Fox and other conservative presenters you get one truth and if you watch less conservative and more liberal sources, you get a different truth. This must be what is meant by alternative facts. It is hard to figure it all out now-a-days!
Questions: Why can't we get to the exact facts and truth all of the time? Isn't the real truth importation? Can people with opposite views be friends with two alternative truths always coming up in conversations?
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