Premature Politics and Early Character Assassination

Thomas Sowell writes about our rush to the 2008 Presidential Season and some of the negative effects happening. I could not agree more with his conclusions on why character assassination works. The following quotation is so right on it hurts:

"The significance of character assassination goes beyond a cynical ploy by politicians. Such ploys are effective only because they appeal to many people who cannot conceive of anyone opposing their political agenda without those political opponents being stupid, evil or corrupt.

In other words, many no longer consider it necessary to meet arguments with counter-arguments, evidence with counter-evidence or logical analysis with logical analysis to the contrary.

Not even in our education system are logic and evidence the touchstones. Not since the days of the Hitler Youth have young people been subjected to more propaganda on more politically correct issues.

At one time, educators boasted that their role was not to teach students what to think but how to think. Today, their role is for too often to teach students what to think on everything from immigration to global warming to the new sacred trinity of 'race, class and gender.'"

We should all wake up to the truth in those four paragraphs! The brief article is worth the time to read in its entirety.