Do people sometimes confuse fiction for fact? Yes. Do they sometimes confuse fantasy or myth for fact? Yes (see ‘religion’)
Do governments lie to their citizens and others? Yes, of course. Does all this lead to undesirable consequences? Yes.
Would a healthy does of skepticism and critical thought help to remedy the situations? Probably.
I read with disgust the article in the November Time Magazine about the My Lai incident. What kind of person would fire a magazine of 16 rounds into a little boy? I’ve seen guys, who after seeing their buddies get blown away, feel like shooting at anyone with slanted eyes, but they didn’t because their reason dispelled their emotions. During the day, the farmers we see plowing their fields are innocent civilians. At night, however, some of them are out setting booby traps. But, we cannot hold an entire village, especially children, responsible for those among them who are VC. Many of the civilians that we believe are VC sympathizers may just be scared civilians who pay taxes to and are harassed by the VC who come at night to the villages. Most of these people are loyal only to themselves and their families. They live in fear of destruction by VC and GI.
Racism has been a basic tenet of Republican Party policy and politics for quite a while – ever since the Democrats passed the Civil Rights laws. . . . [but] …But Racism exists in both parties. People of color in certain instances voted for President Obama because of President Obama’s color. Racism is not to be extrapolated to all republicans because of incidents like this any more than it should be extrapolated to all democrats of color. Such thinking is illogical and is a common bias..
A friend asked why I voted for Obama when my business has been so adversely affected by this economy. It’s a fair question! One of my responses is that deep wounds do not heal quickly. It took more than 12 years to recover from the Great Depression, and the crash of 2008 was nearly as bad as that of 1929; and it’s the worst economic crash since that time.