False Belief

Nothing is as frustrating and deflating in public policy debate as false belief -- either in the form of willful ignorance or those taken in by deliberate misinformation. Never in my lifetime has there been such an overabundance of false belief as now.

Our politically polarized world has gone beyond a difference of opinion to a place of malicious fictions where demons abound, anger is easy, and ignorance fuels the flames. As one reporter put it, how can the president get people behind his policies when he can’t convince a third of the people he’s a Christian.

So we have Rick Santelli's famous call for a tea party because of "losers' mortgages," blaming the housing crisis on the victims and not the predatory lenders. Forbes magazine stated "the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s" in a cover story. Proposed mosques are frantically opposed from Manhattan to Murfreesboro, and even wild charges have been made of Sharia law coming to Dearborn, Michigan. Such fears of terrorist havens were never leveled at Christians after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Building.

This naked deception by some and willingness to ostracize by others is poisonous to the health of our society. The only way it stops is for enough people to stand up to malicious falsehoods and demand "enough."